Many things caused our current deep shit position, but what one of them was the biggest reason?

[Stinky The Clown]

Poll question: Many things caused our current deep shit position, but what one of them was the biggest reason?

[Parche]

1. Obamas fault

Too much money going to Saudia and Middle east including Iraq
and they are not spending, so it is stagnant.

:hi:

[uppityperson]

5. Yeah, he said he'd stop all that and he hasn't yet!

Why did we elect him president is he's going back on his promises?

:sarcasm: lest there be some confusion

[rvablue]

34. You're wrong and you know it. How could even post that when you damn

well know that everything IS CLINTON'S FAULT. E-V-E-R-T-H-I-N-G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[niyad]

2. there has only been one economist I have heard directly link our current economic crisis to the

trillions in costs related to these two illegal, unjust and immoral wars. as my econ professor said eons ago, "you can't blow up half your resources and NOT expect a recession."

[yourout]

3. While one could argue it is simply Republican mantra I have to go with Deregulation.

Without the Deregulation this could never have happened.

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. deregulation

and there is enough blame to go around .

[unpossibles]

6. I picked #2 because it encompasses the first few pretty well

greed, deregulation, war, rampant hate, bigotry...

yup. Heckuva job Georgie, Karl, Dick, Ronnie, and all the others.

[silverweb]

7. Unfettered Republicanism...

Because that includes total corporate deregulation and endless war/empire building.

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. Combination of 1 and 2

[amitta]

9. capitalism

this is actually the natural course of capitalism.
it is a pyramid scheme even when it is "regulated."

[retread]

29. Agree. n/t

[Joe the Liberal]

10. Republicanism.....

because it is at the root of most, not all, but most of the reasons listed on the poll.

[hamsterjill]

11. Bush.

n/t

[taught_me_patience]

12. Iraq war

has bled the treasury dry and bankrupted our country. We've sold our country out to foreigners instead of paying for wars the old fashioned way... raising taxes.

[cascadiance]

13. Robbing the poor to help the rich!

Which has been done in every corner of our country by the past Rethuglican leadership... Our salaries kept from keeping pace with inflation, and being told that we should instead look to home equity to pay for our bills instead of a decent salary is at the core of what has caused so many problems.

Our salaries inherently shouldn't be cycically fluctuating, whereas our equity in our housing and our debt ratio is. And with the downs that inevitably come with any market, when we rely more on the market for our well being than our fixed income, our economy is going to get destroyed that much more when a downturn is magnified immensely by what has happened the last decade or so!

[mikehiggins]

14. The War is STILL on!

Not Iraq or Afghanistan. The war against the poor and middle class being waged by the forces of the right, no matter what their supposed level of sanity (Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater, for example, were largely sane. Hannity, et al? Not so much)

These people are NOT going away. They have to be isolated, and neutralised, and the danger is that we have the tools at hand in the Patriot Act, etc,. to do just that. Of course, if we do, then we are them BUT with good intentions, right? Right.

Luckily, the coming climate change will destroy everything and those lucky few who survive (hey, even BAD luck is still luck) can try it again.

Boy, am I ever depressed.

[Mike 03]

15. RE: the financial situation, I had to vote for "Deregulation," which is IMO a fairly

accurate answer, although I sure blame the behavior of the Federal Reserve in the 1990s, turning a blind eye to the invention of financial instruments they did not understand. These were not regulated because they were not even understood, but "deregulation" is close enough.

[madinmaryland]

16. Fox Noise is blaming the Clenis.

[OHdem10]

17. Give some thought to the part GLobalization has played.

[kenny blankenship]

18. Excess credit creation by central banks

plus deregulation. Why central banks poured torrents of credit into a series of what they must have understood were unproductive asset bubbles for well more than ten years will be a question future generations will puzzle over: why did the "best minds" of the United States and Europe pump trillions of IOU$ into asset bubbles based on this stock exchange, then that one, then real estate then commodities? Were they just thieves, like the stock touts and investment banksters they supposedly regulated? It will be the great enigma of our strange era. Economists, whose job it is to explain to lay people the workings of high finance, have a reason of professional vanity to discount any such ideas. It wouldn't do to have people speaking ill of those in your line of work. It wouldn't do to have people questioning the basic articles of the faith. People will hear every kind of explanation from economists but the true one. The plain answer that central banks, these holiest of holy financial institutions, were as corrupt as the banking "investment" sector they arose from will never be accepted by mainstream society-the dull, honest, hardworking people who'll be working harder than ever. "Corruption" will occur to them but they will recoil from their own words and the evidence of their "lying eyes". That just can't happen they'll say, so it must have been something else --like computer errors. They know that they would go to jail for stealing just 100 dollars so the idea of stealing a hundred billion dollars or trillions... It's unthinkable and too horrible to contemplate that the system you work for, that you slave for, that you support and that you must answer to for every dime you've earned or spent in your life could be fundamentally corrupt right in its center and up to the top. It's like finding out that your parish priest molests children, and his superiors know all about it -the complaints have been heard all the way up to the Vatican- but they choose to cover it up. No, that doesn't happen either. It can't happen because it's too horrible.

[blueclown]

19. Reaganomics. Unfettered Republicanism. Same thing. n/t

[ben_meyers]

20. It's the Deregulation, Stupid

It's the Deregulation, Stupid

Commentary: Democrats from Carter to Clinton helped roll back the government's regulatory power, but as the economic crisis deepens, "regulation" is no longer such a dirty word.

By James Ridgeway

March 28, 2008


Speaking at Cooper Union in New York City on Thursday, Barack Obama went where few Democrats have dared to go in the past quarter-century: He made a case for more regulation. As part of a speech on his economic platform, Obama depicted the current economic crisis as a consequences of deregulation in the financial sector. "Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," he said. "Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one—aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight."

This is quite a statement from a candidate who's received $6 million in campaign contributions from securities and investment firms, just slightly less than rival Hillary Clinton, who cashes in at $6.3 million. Obama's criticism was sharp, but his six-point plan for rebuilding a regulatory structure was short on both details and teeth, and relies on the Federal Reserve, which is like having the fox guard, well, the other foxes. Still, his use of the r-word signals what is at least a rhetorical departure for a party that has been running from regulation for decades.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2008/03/deregulation-economic-crisis.html

Of course this article is from a well known RW rag, but it holds true.

[old mark]

21. Bush's amazing stupidity, and the lack of any kind of

concern for the common people of the US on the part of the Republican Party and especially Bush's backers and advisors.

The whole group should be in prison.

mark

[ramapo]

22. All of the above

If it was just one or two items, the shit wouldn't be so deep.

[Stuart G]

23. It goes like this......pehaps simplified, but a view...

. I think it goes like this..............

Edited on Thu Nov-20-08 03:43 PM by Stuart G
The most prosperous country in the world, lead by a fool's fool, sold to the rest of the world a lot of bad debt. The bad debt, which was packaged in such a way, that an honest person could not tell if it was really bad debt; was bundled together with a lot of very good debt. These packages were sold as a whole, in a lot more packages around the world. (the bad and the good became interconnected and not recognizable from one another)
..Therefore, when the bad debt turned out to be really bad, it could not be separated from the good debt. Trillions of dollars in debt was sold around the world to the world's financial institutions. All of the debt, the good and bad got infected and because the fool, and the fools bank, had no regulations to prevent this kind of contamination, much of all the debt for sale became...let's say... became infected.
..

.. If the bad debt had been kept separate, and stayed withing the country of the fool, none of this would have gone world wide. But it went world wide, and now we all gotta pay for the fool's mistake and the fool's banker...a fellow named.... Alan Greenspan., who said it couldn't happen.

... ..Cause everyone trusted the fool and his banker and the packages of good and bad debt were sold to the world like bundles of corn....absolutely sure to increase in value with no risk..

Jokes on the fool and all of us........end of fairy tail..

[Waiting For Everyman]

24. Banks' practices and their lawyers - deliberately ruining Main Street.

A complete collapse of any consumer protection in the law whatsoever, the law instead being made into a machine to chew people up for little or no reason... just "policy", or "that's how it is", or "that's what the fine print in the contract allows us to do". That's how it is BECAUSE THE LOBBYISTS WERE ALLOWED TO RE-WRITE OUR LAWS TO MAKE THEFT LEGAL.

Add to that, allowing banks to create fictional paper with no security and multiply that with derivatives.

Add to that, allowing them to sit on their capital and refuse to lend or refinance to businesses and homeowners.

Add to that, now their ramping up their rates (out of "prudence", while everybody's equity is being driven down... BY THEM!)

[jaysunb]

25. The Supreme Courts election theft of 2000

:evilfrown:

[mnhtnbb]

26. Greed. Is that the same thing as unfettered Republicanism? I don't think so.

Many Dems colluded with Repubs to set up the Iraq War which has effectively raped the US Treasury
while destroying Iraq. Greed was the motivation--and revenge for Bushie boy--for the war. Cheney
et al wanted the oil. Bushie boy wanted to one up Poppy.

Greed is what caused the subprime mess--deregulation was simply the mechanism that allowed it to happen.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

27. Offshoring

From my POV, what's hurt most has been companies that sell out the American worker to get slave labor elsewhere. Not only does it take the work away, but any that remains is subject to downwardly spiraling wages. Look at your medical records. Ten years ago, we were making 15 cents per line for transcribing them. Increasingly, the work is making a beeline to India (with the Philippines clamoring for their share) and US workers--regardless of experience--are lucky to find a starting wage above 6-7 cpl. Forget benefits, because we don't get many anymore. (Yeah, I have insurance--with a freakin' $6000 deductible--and it doesn't even cover much more than preventive care!) With speech recognition factored in, we're being told to expect 2-4 cpl. (Of course, SR sucks and that means we end up transcribing the entire thing from scratch for a fraction of the wages.) Hospitals have been groomed to expect crap work in return for low cost--and they're apparently okay with that. The bottom line is the main objective--not patient safety, not accuracy, not privacy. Forget that the medical record is what's used by the coders/billers to actually bring income into the facility. The field is staffed largely by women, clerical workers who have never been respected, so why worry about offering a living wage? We're all just doing this for pin money whilst our men are the real breadwinners, right? :eyes:

We are competing against people who are able to live on $2-4/day. Transcription, tech support, telemarketers, IT--you name it. If corporate arseholes can slash expenses and benefits by selling us out to another country, they are doing it. Unless customers start putting their feet down and raising hell about their personal information leaving this country (we see it all, including your SSN), they have no incentive to stop.

I am really curious to see what Obama's plans for offshoring will really do to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. It could be too late in that any penalties or extra taxes they have to pay will still be offset by the fact that their payroll expenses are insanely low outside the US. Meanwhile, we're left becoming the biggest Third World nation of all, reduced to minimum wage service sector work because there isn't a living wage to be had in any field that can be farmed out. What happens when Starbucks is the best gig you can hope to get? Even those jobs won't last once no one can afford to patronize them.

You want to be really depressed, watch Esoteric Agenda, which kind of picks up where Zeitgeist leaves off. If TPTB are really looking to destabilize the world economy and weed out a few billion people, they've got a good start.

[orwell]

28. Other...

...all of these disasters were enabled by the Greenspan Fed. Without the "master of the money spigot", none of these land mines would have turned into the weapons of mass destruction that they have become.

[KG]

30. PATCO - it signaled the shift of power from workers to corporations.

and the beginning of the shipping of americas industrial base overseas and corporate consolidation.

don't blams this on the GOP. both parties have happily rubber stamped policies the accelerated the trend til our economy consists of nothing but selling paper and hamburgers to each other

[MercutioATC]

31. Other: The greed that is a product of short-term thinking.

Whether it's cooking the books to enhance bonuses or running oneself into horrendous debt to buy a new TV, this country's planning horizon is about three months.

We used to save for years to buy a house or take a trip or retire. Now we charge it, not even considering what the long-term effect will be to our financial state.

Corporations used to look to the future. They used to have a long-term growth plan. Now, their decisions are based on what will improve their quarterly reports because it's no longer about strength, it's about coming in two cents above analyst estimates...at least this time.


I don't think this is a simple greed thing. Greed is the symptom. Short-term thinking is the disease.

[Cleita]

32. Simply our government was hijacked and taken hostage by modern day

raiders who have emptied our country of our money and done a lot of killing and crime in the process. When they leave nothing will be left. I wonder how we can steal it all back from them?

[slackmaster]

33. Deregulation is a factor in several of those items

So that's what I voted for.

[jmg257]

35. Not both Clintons - just Bill. Followed by Bush. Re: the govt mandate of stupid lending practices.

[guitar man]

36. Here's your reason right here

He started it and the continued worship by the right at the altar of his failed policies have resonated down to this very dark day where we find ourselves now.

[Greyhound]

37. The ramant ignorance of the American Sheeple.

it was just so much easier to ignore the facts and pretend...

[Orsino]

38. The worship of money.

Our fawning behavior toward the hereditary rich and members of the executive and Congressional classes taught them that they were better than we are, and that they didn't have to listen to us.

Money, left unchecked, votes for itself. It is a jealous god, one which tolerates no other faiths.

[NashVegas]

39. Other: Most of the Above and More

But if I had to choose a single largest, I would blame it on the oil manipulation of 2007-2008 even more than the housing bubble/credit crunch.

When oil went as high as it did, every sector across the board was affected.

[Qibing Zero]

40. The war is by far the 'worst' of these

I look at it this way.


We destroy resources:
Afghanistan War
Iraq War

We use resources on unnecessary things:
Fancy big houses
Gas guzzling cars
Space-based military programs
..etc

We allow resources to accumulate into the hands of a privileged few:
Deregulation
Unrestrained capitalism


Then we over/undervalue all of the resources we do have, as evidenced in the subprime mortgage crisis. So we've screwed everything up, lied to ourselves about it, and now we're finally starting to see the fallout. Good times.

[The2ndWheel]

41. The basic unsustainablility of extractive mass civilization