Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[cpebbles]

More and more I'm just hoping the new ultraconservative GOP gets control of the Presidency and Congress, brings the 20s right back, and then when that blows up in everyone's faces gets marginalized for 50 years so we can finally start doing a few things right in this country. Yeah, it'll make for a lousy decade, but does anyone really want to keep the status quo going indefinitely?

[IMADreamer]

More and more I'm just hoping the new ultraconservative GOP gets control of the Presidency and Congress, brings the 20s right back, and then when that blows up in everyone's faces gets marginalized for 50 years so we can finally start doing a few things right in this country. Yeah, it'll make for a lousy decade, but does anyone really want to keep the status quo going indefinitely?

On paper that's a great idea, but I can't help but think after another decade of those policies we are in too deep a hole to get out. I can't help but think that anything short of revolution, hopefully the Eqyptian kinds vs the Libyian kind could get us out of the mess we are in now. I know it sounds like typical liberal talking points but giant corporations have this country by the balls and I don't see how that changes. There is no incentive by the politicians to change it. They aren't afraid of the people, and why should they be. The people are in it so deep right now they just put there head down and work to hopefully pay their bills. When they do have some free time they are distracted by American Idol, the NFL, or whatever they do to get their mind off how bad their life really is.

Then there are the propaganda machines, fueled by big business who are scary good at convincing people that those who disagree with them are evil monsters and even scarier good at convincing people to vote against there best interest.

America is no longer a Republic or Democracy but it's an oligarchy. I honestly don't know how we can change it at this point. I'm sure I sound like a lunatic conspiracy theorist but it wasn't that long ago I worked in this political system, I've seen it on the inside, and I was stupid enough to think that the right people with the right ideas could change it. Those people were elected and just became a part of it.

41% of America now believes the American dream is out of reach. My question is, what are the other 59% smoking?

[longhornbaseball]

So yeah, about that super committee...

Why wouldn't we have a committee dedicated to making our already fragile economy even weaker?

[Freed Roger]

More and more I'm just hoping the new ultraconservative GOP gets control of the Presidency and Congress, brings the 20s right back, and then when that blows up in everyone's faces gets marginalized for 50 years so we can finally start doing a few things right in this country. Yeah, it'll make for a lousy decade, but does anyone really want to keep the status quo going indefinitely?

Nope. There aren't enough natural resources left. We can't stand and afford another major war. We can't be alienated geopolitically for a decade. The environment can't stand a decade of no protection. Education can't stand a decade of weakening. A decade of more wealth shifting to the upper class. Just look how damaging the Bush years were.

It's bad enough what the republican wing of the democrat party is doing now. No [expletive] way No and no.

[slide_into_first]

interesting article

http://seekingalpha.com/article/309196- ... t-big-move

[Leroy]

I think the next idea should be an Aqua committee or maybe a Wonder Woman committee. Or perhaps a Batman and Robin committee.

[cpebbles]

Now the GOP has decided that the automatic cuts which they triggered by refusing to get a deal done hit the military too hard, and they're looking for a way to get out of them, or to at least convince idiots we're compromising national security by only spending six times as much as their new bogeyman China.

[IMADreamer]

Now the GOP has decided that the automatic cuts which they triggered by refusing to get a deal done hit the military too hard, and they're looking for a way to get out of them, or to at least convince idiots we're compromising national security by only spending six times as much as their new bogeyman China.

That was the plan all along. Especially around the holidays they can really trump up the terrorism card, the idiot democrats will cave and pass some bill not only not enforcing the cuts but ramping up military spending. The Right gets everything they want. As usual.

[Michael]

I thought this was an interesting comment from an AP article regarding today's central bank actions.

The central banks were responding to fears that Europe's two-year old debt crisis could escalate suddenly, touching off a global credit freeze similar to what followed the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. The decision to allow Lehman to fail is now widely seen as a mistake.

Link

Is letting Lehman fail widely considered considered a mistake? I wasn't aware of this. I've always thought we would have largely had the same issues if we would have saved them. At least by letting them fail we injected some moral hazard.

[cpebbles]

Lots of people did consider it the biggest mistake of the entire handling of the economic crisis. Personally, I think all it did was give us a concrete starting point instead of a steady slide into recession.