Republican circus show - Santelli, Palin, Joe the Plumber, Bling Bling Steele = who's next!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Stooges inc.

[rockymountaindem]

1. I think they're honestly at a loss as to how to deal with Obama

I'm only 22, but from what I can imagine there hasn't been a politician like him in living memory in this country (if ever on the national level).

[Triana]

2. Don't forget Limpballs and Annthrax

What a motley crew of wingnuts. Bwah! :rofl:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. how could I forget!

[Joe Bacon]

3. Ted Nugent?

How about Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood playing backup for ol Ted?

[Hellataz]

4. Stooges!? I got your Stooges right here:

[Baikonour]

5. I'm sure Ann Coulter will be the next to say something ridiculous and thinly racist.

She's already said pretty awful things about Chris Matthews vis-a-vis Obama.

[lamp_shade]

6. Allen Keyes

[mwb970]

7. Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn....

The repugnant party is really overflowing with no-talent, knee-jerk wingnut extremists right now. That's why they are doing so well!

[jeanpalmer]

8. I wouldn't put Rick Santelli in that group

He's not a right wing ideologue. He's very knowledgeable about the credit markets and he seems independent in his political comments. He had many critical things to say about Bush's policies during the Bush years.

As for his comments on the mortgage plan, he makes sense. Why should the government subsidize people who made bad decisions on mortgages? Why should the government pick and choose who succeeds and fails, based on what criteria? For example, as Santelli pointed out today, many people have lost half their life savings in the stock market crash. Should the government bail them out and make them whole, make up for their losses in the stock market? If not, why should the stock market losers have to pay taxes to subsidize real estate losers? I'm with Santelli on that. It doesn't make sense, and there's a fundamental issue of fairness.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. until you are in 'the position' you will take that viewpoint

no job is safe and no savings are safe. I see people who thought they had solid long term jobs lose their job and house. These people had not lived above their means they only had ordinary 2 or 3 bedroom houses. Why deny people's right to buy?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Oh, jeez, you and this Santelli moron don't get it at all.

It's not about "rewarding" people who made bad decisions when they took out mortgages that proved too much for them to handle. It's about protecting the value of everybody else's homes. If all those foreclosures occur, there will be an even greater glut of houses and the value of all houses will fall even further. Including yours. Unoccupied houses attract vandals and cause the values of surrounding properties to decrease. Property taxes are not paid and local governments have less money to pay for basic services like schools and streets. Widespread foreclosures are a very bad thing for everybody. If the house next door catches on fire because my neighbor did something careless I still want the fire department to come and put out the fire -- not just because I don't want my neighbors and their kids to be homeless, but because I don't want the fire to spread to my house.

Opposing mortgage assistance to homeowners who need it is pure Republican: "I got mine, to hell with you." And it's bullshit and it hurts everybody. Santelli IS a moron.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. Santelli has to be put straight once and for all

I know the WH have had a go at him but this should be hammered home.

[jeanpalmer]

19. Housing prices are too high

The market is trying to adjust, as it does with any other overpriced item. At current levels, young people cannot afford them. Let the prices come down. People who came to believe that their house was some kind of money machine were misled. It gained value mostly because the government inflated the currency. Home owners then got a windfall they didn't deserve. Just as with owners of stock, prices go up, prices go down. Let the market work. If you'll accept price increases that you didn't deserve, then be consistent and accept prices when they fall. Don't come crying to the government and the taxpayer, especially young taxpayers who will bear the burden of this irresponsible nonsense.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. "Let the market work."

More "free market" Milton Friedman bullshit. The market doesn't work. Even Greenspan has finally figured that out. Free market capitalism has proved to be as untenable and stupid as Soviet-style collectivist Marxism. Once we consign this Randian crap to the dustbin of history with Marxism maybe we can put together a system that works. This doesn't. This market will not correct itself.

[jeanpalmer]

23. Sure the housing market will correct itself

It's in the process of doing it now. Prices got too high, now they're correcting. If the government would just let the process run its course, prices would get back to the level where they could be supported, and the market would clear out the excess supply. You may not like the result personally, but low prices are good for many people -- the poorer and the young in particular.

The problem is not that markets don't work, but that people don't like the result when prices go down. Especially people who mistakenly viewed their houses as piggy banks. People who bought houses from 1960 onward have received the biggest undeserved windfall in the history of the world. Only because the government intentionally inflated prices. And now they're complaining because prices have reversed.

That didn't happen because of "ideologues." It happened because we've had a government that didn't respect its currency, inflated like hell, misled people into believing that housing prices were a one-way street, inflated housing prices to offset jobs they shipped overseas, and didn't regulate its markets properly. And these excesses were supported by politicians on both sides of the aisle. They and the Federal Reserve are the real culprits here.

[Hello_Kitty]

28. Um, what good are low home prices if you don't have a job?

Because by the time the "free market" gets done doing all this correctin', a whole lotta people will be out of work.

[treestar]

33. If you don't have a job, you don't "deserve" a house.

:sarcasm:

It's unfair to the people who still have a job if anything is done to help anyone who is out of a job! :sarcasm:

[creeksneakers2]

41. I agree

The price of land is out of sight. Without some kind of gimmick like artificially low interest rates or tax write offs the prices would have been lower all along. People would have borrowed less to buy, and they wouldn't be losing so much money now.

If it weren't for the price collapse, people who couldn't afford their mortgages could just sell their houses and pay off the banks.

Its best now to put lots of houses on the market cheap and give some others a chance at home ownership. Then a recovery could begin.

[Fearless]

38. Of course it corrects itself... it just has no qualms about who get's "corrected" along with it.

:(

[treestar]

32. I doubt the individuals who are now out of a job really believe

they "deserve" to pay for their "irresponsibility."

[creeksneakers2]

42. Why just help some of the people who are out of work?

If anything, homeowners are probably better off than the average out of work person. If you want to help the unemployed, why not just send them a check and make it equal for everybody?

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. People need to stop pretending that the free market ideologues like Santelli are NOT political

They are political. It only "appears" as "independent analysis" because that particularly noxious and failed brand of social organization reigned supreme for the last 30 years. It is a deeply political operation, and as failed a form of social organization as Soviet socialism. You know, the communists also pretended that their CHOICES about social organization were "scientific," an "objective analysis" of social phenomena. They also had little keywords ("losers") that signaled the operation of their particular ideology. Now, you might agree with it or not, just as you might agree with the utterly political choices being argued for by Santelli or not, but let's at least stop pretending that these political choices are some objective analysis of the situation. The free market ideology of people like Santelli is itself the LOSER: the market has done a fabulously FAILED job of making the same decisions you fear in government. The entire free market, deregulated system that fuels this nonsense has been exposed as a complete failure at its bigger task: stable and productive social organization. The market is as abject a failure are Soviet socialism.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. Santellli has actually done harm to the American people

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. I'm curious about whether Santelli holds long positions on mortgage backed securities

I think the American people deserve to know his personal financial stakes in the argument. When will CNBC ask Santelli to open his books to the public so we can judge whether he is arguing from a position of personal gain?

[jeanpalmer]

22. That's laughable

I see many people on here haven't watched but just one video clip of him. He wouldn't touch MBS with a ten foot pole. He was onto that scam a long time ago. People on here obviously haven't watched him over any period of time. Regarding his politics, he has never revealed how he votes but I wouldn't be surprised to find he voted for Obama.

[Hello_Kitty]

29. He voted for McCain. He told Chris Matthews.

So you're wrong there. BTW, where was Mr. Independence when the banks were being bailed out? I don't recall any tirades back then.

[jeanpalmer]

37. Who is bailing out the banks now?

Did I miss something? Paul has always been against bailing out anyone.

The major problem this country faces is spending too much on the military. Paul is against that. He wants to cut back drastically on military spending. This military spending is wrecking our country's finances. I was hoping Obama would show show a sense of urgency in rectifying that particular problem, but all he seems intent on doing is axacerbating it. So long as this country wastes $800+ billion a year on defense spending, it's headed the way of Rome. But Obama seems to have a free pass from people like you. Oh yeah, Ron Paul is the problem.

[Hello_Kitty]

40. Paul? I thought his name was Rick.

Perhaps you have a closer relationship with him than the rest of us on DU do. Oh, I see, now you're defending Ron Paul. Well dearie, I never said anything about Ron Paul.

[creeksneakers2]

43. That's the real solution

Hardly anybody is talking about it though.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. like opening a can of worms

foreign worms

[jeanpalmer]

20. Santelli is not a free maket ideologue

I don't know where you came up with that. He has been critical of many of the market excesses, while they were happening. He supports free markets to the same extent that most people do, including you probably, but not the excesses we've seen recently which are many. The real free market ideologues sit in Congress, including almost all Democrats, lining their pockets with Wall Street cash. Where's your criticism of these ideologues, i.e. the ones responsible for it? I don't see Obama taking on free markets either, not even the excesses.

[Enthusiast]

16. Oh Bullshit!

Be with Santelli, just get the hell off DU! Santelli wouldn't know a 'fundamental issue of fairness' if it bit him on the ass and apparently you suffer from the same problem.

The people Obama proposes we save are not the ones that made bad decisions. We are also saving the value of neighborhood real estate as well as continuing payments on the home. What in the hell is wrong with that?


Why not just repeat right wing talking points whole cloth while you're at it?

[jeanpalmer]

24. Who caused the real estate craze?

Was it Rick Santelli?

You're willing to put your kid in debt up to his eyeballs to "save your neighborhood." How despicable. How are you going to pay for this saving? You're just going to run up a debt on your kids. How about taking some personal responsibility and you paying for it?

The people who really will be saved by Obama are not the homeowners, it's the banks. Normally, their bad loans would be wiped out under these circumstances and they would go bankrupt. But Obama is trying to save them. Let's get real here.

[Enthusiast]

27. GOP talking points do not

belong on DU. We can hear them on every TV channel and every radio station. BUSH, the Military Industrial Complex and a cabal of thieves put my children in debt! We don't buy into the GOP talking points here. Just give it up.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

39. only a GOPer would support Santelli

because Santelli got it wrong.

[creeksneakers2]

44. She should be allowed to give her opinion

Who are you to tell her she can't?

[Enthusiast]

49. It isn't her opinion

It is force fed bullshit from the fascist Reich Wing. It is the official Republican 'position'. We don't much care for Republicans. Myself, I think they are the lowest scum.

[treestar]

35. BS

You republicans did not care about your kids going into debt to kill Iraqis. And the economy can recover and pay off the debt before the kids have to (we had a surplus after the Clinton Administration), and the kids are living in the damn houses now!

[jeanpalmer]

36. LOL

That's hilarious. Sure the economy will recover and they'll pay off the debt. I'm totally against war, against militarism. But Obama seems to have no poblem continuing it. Killing civilians with drones seems to cause him no problem. Doesn't exhibit any moral qualms. That's why I'm losing confidence in him. I'm starting to feel we've been axelrodded. In other words, bullshitted by a con artist. The real Republicans are people like you who have bought into right wing supply-side recovery propaganda.

[Hello_Kitty]

45. So says someone who has repeated several RW talking points in this thread.

Sorry dear, but your cheering of Ron Paul tells me everything I need to know about you

[treestar]

48. It's hilarious that the economy can't recover?

Bbbbbut I thought wars were good for the economy?

I thought all you cared about was not putting the children in more debt, even as they live on the streets, just so the market for real estate can readjust to its proper capitalist value?

[Hello_Kitty]

30. Seriously, I'm waiting for the CRA and ACORN to pop up in her commentary. eom

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Want to know more about what Santelli and like-minded goons are up to?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5102005

[olegramps]

18. Santelli is the epitome of just what went wrong.

I have no idea for where you are getting your information. Perhaps you are on the wrong board.

[jeanpalmer]

26. That's also laughable

Rick Santelli is just a trader, trying to explain the credit markets. It's not possible he can be "the epitome" of what went wrong.

What went wrong was the country got too far in debt. Over a period of 60 years. Household debt went from 50% of GDP in 1980 to 100% in 2007. That trend had to break at some point, it was unsustainable. It broke in 2007. And much of that debt was the result of government policies that inflated the hell out of everything, misleading people into believing they would get an undeserved windfall by investing in real estate. There is no reason why a house that sold for $35,000 in 1975 should be selling for $500,000 today. Houses depreciate like every other asset. The price, without government inflation, should have declined to probably $30,000, or increased slightly. The main thing that drove up the price was intentionally fostered inflation. Which led people to take on huge amounts of debt, expecting higher prices. The recent excesses simply triggered the collapse of a debt edifice that had been built up over many years.

The epitome of what went wrong is sitting in Congess. It was their policies of inflating, overspending, shipping jobs oveseas, spending outrageous sums on empire building and military conquest that created the monster that is destroying us. While lining their pockets with bribes. They should all be thrown out.

Rick Santelli "epitome of what went wrong"? LOL.

[TheKentuckian]

34. That parts comparably nothing

this didn't go catastrophic until the greedy money changers rolled all the crap into securities and passed the poison through the entire world economy 5 or 5 times, racked up a whole of 14-50 trillion, and got in line for government aid.

Now we have a different group of the greedy and the envious crying about propping up the wider community because they're afraid of getting left out. Free Marketers apparently only need civilization to have people to blame and/or rob.

[symbolman]

46. You might want to mention a Demcratic ideal here and there

If you're going to pretend to be a Dem here, praising Obama isn't enough for the wolf in Sheeps clothing gig on this boards.. Right wingers are as transparent here as a screen door on a submarine..

I heard all this bullshit from my right wing wacko brother as I made my way with a wife and four year old son, as we fled our FORECLOSED property..

I get so sick of these all knowing Assholes making these painless judgement calls while REAL People, Americans, Veterans like ME Sleep in a Truck in freezing rain with a confused, Hungry Child... Human Fucking Beings who have a Constitutional RIGHT to be Protected BY our Leader, for whatever reason...

Luckily, thanks to the good graces of folks on the DU we are SAFE for The time being, we MAY get a shot at getting our HOME BACK, depending on how Obama makes the call..

Meanwhile folks like you lve to chat all about how Wrong WE were to OWN a goddam home in the first place..

Shut up Genius, there's real Pain out there, but like the ones who make everyone suffer, You have all the answers, but it would appear, NONE of the Compassion our Real President has..

I'm getting real sick of inane pompous shitheads who actually Know Nothing, but keep flapping their lips.

Like Obama said, "Enough!"

[Enthusiast]

47. What an excellent post, symbolman!

Yes, these all knowing Republican assholes have more compassion for a fat lazy millionaire than a homeless veteran.

We don't need no stinkin' stealth republicans.

AND THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS.

[treestar]

31. Because a house is a roof over someone's head today

401ks are retirement, in the future. People who invest in the stock market take the risk. Real estate is not traditionally thought of as such a risk.

People who have money to put in the stock market are by definition not poor.

[TeamJordan23]

50. Sadly, the MSM loves them. nm