Liberal journalism killing democracy

The Republicans had 6 years during the Bush administration to regulate the economy. Instead they chose to increase the deficit, with Cheney stating that deficits don't matter. They increased the size of government and took much credit for the booming economy that was based on lies and greed. George Bush said many times "More people than ever before own homes now." Democrats have their own part in this, too, but now, the American people have made a statement. Everyone is going to have to suck it up and do their part to correct this problem. Unfortunately, it means more money out of our pockets into those of the wealthy, who weren't able to manage what they had. There's been too much "redistribution" into the hands of the greedy.

Revisionist drivel...the winners get to write history buddy and your version of the truth, with only limited validity is not what history will remember. It would probably be MOST accurate to say that there is enough blame to go around and most could be laid at the feet of the Repub congress that bullied Clinton into signing away vital legislation. That's right...blame poor people and minorities. Your ignorance clearly illustrates your self-hatred, lack of personal acheivement and need to blame others as they "usurp" resources that you think should be yours as a God fearing, tax paying, original voting white man...wake up...the world is a different place now is is rapidly leaving you and your fellow likeminded types behind.

If Carter and Clinton caused all of these problems, why didn't Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress fix them when they were in control?

Mr. Hunter, the true story is that this election has confirmed the failure of the right-wing. With massive losses in the Senate and House, this country has moved past the rhetoric of fear the right-wing chooses to use as their primary strategy. The right-wing was given the Senate and House for 6 years and implemented failed policies. As one GOP expert stated, "We have become a regionalized party of the South." Mr. Hunter, this country is made-up of more than those people who worship Rush and Hannity, and actually believe what they say. It's very sad.

GaCopperhead there has been no "redistribution" of wealth before that is why it is an issue now. That's ignorant.

Around 1848 Karl Marx wrote a little ditty called The Manifesto. In it he laid out a 300 year plan for taking control of a country. It included steps to gain control of the entertainment industry, the news media and the schools before trying to gain control of the government. The old "how to boil a frog" approach. It also included talking points like "from each according to ability and to each according to need" and "spreading the wealth" and "support your government so your government can support you". It's a study on the velvet rope of social engineering. The coincidence that it parallels the actions of the Dem party for the past 60-plus years is just......coincidental

Bizarro, isn't calling GaC's post ignorant just a little redundant?

AS usual shivas is partly right. The Republicans did have 6 years to fix this mess and for what ever reason failed to act. So the Democrat reasoning now is to elect someone who has supported this failed philosophy his whole life. What the Democrats who voted for this empty suit who talks real pretty have done is make 100% certain this issue will not be resolved, only worsened. We need Obama. Obama need us. Obama need ACORN. Not God Bless America but God @#$% America.

Good work Tom. Looks like you kicked up a nest of hornets this morning. It may be more accurate to say that Screwtape read your letter and mustered his hoard of little Wormwoods. Oh how they hate to hear the truth and to make it worse it can be documented.

Mr. Hunter,please stand back and take a fair and rational look at the current circumstances before you drink the cool aid.Bush and Big Oil,Cheney and Halliburton.Hurricanes are nothing new so why now do they affect gas prices so much?Remember how gas prices tumbled leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections?What happened to the prices shortly afterward?Too many coincidences and too many of the "connected"getting fat while the average Joe suffers.Look at the Katrina fiasco with the mobile homes bought to rot They frighten people with the thought of a country full of gay marriages and firearms being taken and laugh all the way to the bank. Give change a chance and if not happy,change back.That's what makes this a great country.BTW,I'm still wondering if Cheney is still alive!!Has ANYONE heard from him?

14PUTT, I hate to disagree with you, but shivas isn't even a little right. Remember Jumpin' Jim Jeffords that gave control of the senate to the Dems for the first two years of the Bush administration? The Dems have also had control of congress for the last two years of this administration. That leaves the Repubs with4 years of congressional control.

The Repubs did screw up. That does not excuse the the press from wilful ignornceThe Repubs did screw up, that does not excuse the press from willfully promoting ignorance! The press failed to ask Obama what he meant by bankrupting the coal industry (did that include coal gasification plants). The Press Failing to ask Obama about his civilian security force on equal footing with the US military (do they really need aircraft carriers, A-10 wart hogs, Abrams tanks)? AS we run into inflation, high rates for energy, and a dismal economy similar to Jimmy Carter and the misery index will the press still be able to blame Failed Bush policies? Oh! Get out your pen to write the IRS larger checks as the Bush tax cuts expire!

PT, you're right. I stand corrected.

Read the following link and tell me how this joke newspaper accurately predicted most things under President Bush if it is not a cycle under Republicans? http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784 You can't say anything, but admit this is what they are all about.

carcraft,sounds like you're rooting for failure so you can say "told ya so".Glad to see you are making so much money to worry about a tax increase.It won't be so bad though;the tax rates are only going to return to where they were before ole W took care of ole "Kenny Boy"at Enron and the rest of the connected.Sorry to say that "trickle down economics"turned into trickle up. What did P.T.Barnum say?Yep!There's a Sucker born every minute.

Hmm...now, "trickle down" was not intended to be a PROPOSAL; it was a DESCRIPTION of what happens in a free market. People who have more money than they need to meet their basic wants and needs do a couple of things with that money: they either develop more expensive wants and needs (54" plasma instead of a 27" CRT television set), which benefits the workers who manufacture the items need to satisfy their expanded wants and needs. Or, they invest their money: in banks (which lend that money out: in mortgages, making them more affordable; in capital for small business start-ups, making it easier for entrepreneurs to start a new business, which will create jobs; or in equities, providing new capital to existing businesses, which will create more jobs and return value to the shareholders), or in equities (which provides new capital to existing businesses and allows for new job creation and returns for investors). In other words, ANYTHING that a "rich" person does with their money involves providing either lower-cost capital downstream, or increased employment for unemployed-underemployed people at lower SES levels. Now, WHAT, precisely, is available for trickling UP...?

reader 54 Yep, the taxes will will go back to what they were before Bush, that includes the 500 dollar child credit that benefited Kenny boy, increase in $34k per year earners that benefited Kenny boy, and capital gains that benefited us all by increasing investments.

Justus, It is has been a white dominated news media that has gotten Obama elected. Virtually all the cable news channels except Fox have supported Obama. Liberalism runs rampant in journalism and acadamia-that is a fact. What is your complaint. Further what you are arguing for isn't diveristy but racism as you seem to suggest only blacks are qualified to journalistically approach certain subjects. You seem to argue that hispanics, blacks, etc are different and not your average american or they are outside of America.

I mean, the poor want what the rich have: money. What do the poor have that anyone wants? Unfortunate family circumstances? Laziness? Some inherent genetic or intellectual deficit? Bad luck? Be the causes of poverty whatever you believe them to be, does anyone WANT what those things are? Now, unless you really think that it is the role of the government to put its hands on every single dollar that passes through our economy, then govt can only forcibly redistribute wealth through tax policy. I don't use the term "socialist" in a "name-calling" way. To me, it has a specific meaning. Socialists are people who lack even a basic understanding of markets, incentives and individual choice. Socialists see someone who puts $10 million at risk, and who receives $12M in return, earning $2M (20% on his money). They decide that that is too much, and confiscate $1M of that money to make things "fair," and they EXPECT THAT PERSON NOT TO CHANGE HIS BEHAVIOR. That is what makes someone a socialist, and that is what eventually leads to fascism. Because that rich person now is not going to invest $10M, if he'll only get 10% back on it. He will demand a higher return in order to meet his tax burden.

And how will the companies in which he is investing (risking) his money provide a higher rate of return? They will need to earn higher profits, by either raising their prices (thus passing the increased tax along to the buyer at the grocery store, clothing store, gas station, whatever), or they will have to hold down expenses. Since wages and benefits are the largest costs most employers bear, and also the least "fixed," the goal is to keep down the number of highly-paid employees and hire as many low-wage workers as possible while still producing at a profit. Thus, the higher tax (just like an increase in a min. wage, or any other cost) either gets passed on to the consumer or to the worker. If it doesn't, then the investor will not CHOOSE to put money at risk, again. He can buy TBills with it (thus NOT adding to the creation of new wealth), buy gold with it (ditto) or shelter it abroad (double ditto); in each case, that wealth will no longer be available as CAPITAL.

This is why socialism inevitably leads to fascism; because the socialists need that guy to keep putting his $10M at risk, even if they raise his taxes so much that he's literally better off burying his money in the yard. If the investor becomes noncompliant, you see nationalization and other means of confiscating that wealth. The problem is, for all liberal talk of "investment," governments can only SPEND capital; they cannot create wealth, because their only product is government. So, for those who wonder, that is what I mean by socialism. It is not an insult or a sign of disrespect; I do not disrespect my own intelligence simply because I don't understand how to perform brain surgery or play a musical instrument. The difference is, nobody would allow me to perform brain surgery or a cantata, but we do elect socialists and empower them to do things that profoundly impact our economy. The founders of this country knew the dangers of this sort of thinking, which is why no branch of government was charged with "managing" even the very simple economy that existed at the time.

Dang johnsmith, I thought you were a bright bulb. I thought you had already figured out Obama's plan of using marxist strategies to get elected and then implement his fascist regime. Why would he have voted for the recent FISA act (against all Dems)if not to gain power to strengthen the executive for his coup. Beware the wolf in lambs clothing. I just hope the Rep follow the Dem lead and plan to sabotage and interfer with any actions proposed by Obama. Then when things get worst they can demonize him, the Dems, and move to impeach him too. The Dems will be in control and get all the blame for everything wrong and then the Rep can claim all the good is delayed form the Bush administration. Sounds familiar, huh.

Well said johnsmith...but unfortunetly you are speaking to the brainwashed masses....(and they may not be able to understand it)

Well Karma, People without ethics and intellect have a difficult time comprehending certain principals and facts.

You can see this thinking, if you are honest with yourself, by reading the various debates and comments re: the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Critics of republicans say that that party attributed the mortgage problems to CRA, even though most lenders were not subject to CRA, but still made subprime loans. That is intellectually dishonest. The banks who WERE subject to CRA, had not been subject to it before it was passed. Because those banks did not lend in accordance with socialist principles (i.e. to "expand homeownership" rather than to make a profit), the CRA was enacted and they were forced to do so. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure out that if my neighbor was stubborn and got hit on the head, it will not benefit me to be stubborn. The focus on the CRA itself, also neglects the role of Fannie and Freddie. Socialist thinking says that, if banks will not willingly "help the less fortunate" by giving loans to people with no job, no income and no down payment, then we have to make them do that. That can be achieved either by direct fascist policy (require banks to make X% loans to people who can't pay them; cap the return banks are allowed to earn on mortgages),

but those policies amount to taking an axe to economic liberty, which can backfire. Far better to use a scalpel: charter a couple of Government Sponsored Entities with cute names, and use government policy along with implicit (later explicit) backing of the "full faith and credit of the United States," then charge those GSEs with "encouraging homeownership" by buying up mortgages that banks don't want to write. That way, banks now have a huge new profit center that achieves the socialist purpose. They lend money to johnsmith, who doesn't have a pot to pee in, and then sell that loan to FM/FM. FM/FM pay the bank the full value of the loan, plus a commission. The bank now has that cash to go out and do the same with sally brown. Any bank that does NOT do this loses a competitive advantage in the financial market. Its officers could be accused of malfeasance, for not writing loans that would have increased profits and shareholder value. Not only that, they could easily have been accused of racism, by the unsubstantiated claim that most people with little money who want to buy a house, are members of a protected minority.

o, the banks make the loans because there is a BUYER for those loans. Only...what happens when many, many johnsmiths and sally browns cannot pay back the mortgage that no sane bank would have written if it meant risking the bank's own capital? Oh...well, somebody has to make up that lost capital, right? And who would that be? Well, let's see...FM/FM are GOVERNMENT sponsored entities... And where does GOVT get its money? Socialists, of course, cannot see this. They blame the banks that made profits by selling bad loans to FM/FM, but never think that it might have been a bad idea to empower and encourage FM/FM to BUY those bad loans. I mean, who is going to invest money today in a coal-powered steam-driven automobile? Who would BUY that? You would not risk your own money that way, in the same way you would not risk your own money lending it to someone who flat tells you that it's none of your business if they have a job, any money or any assets. You understand that in your personal life, but many of you are socialists and don't undertand that the same principles apply, on a larger scale, in a market. That is the danger of socialism, and why it inevitably leads to fascism...

Ok, I'll sit down and shut up, now. Maybe somebody, somewhere, will read thru all that and learn something. Unlikely, since even a basic description of how a market really works in just one facet of its operation--in life, in commerce, not in a textbook--takes lots and lots of words, and socialist ideas can be expressed very simply as, "I'm going to charge a little more to the people who can afford it, to help those who are struggling." That sounds so logical, so easy and clear...no surprise that it is a very attractive idea...

Alan Greenspan contineus to say he is sorry for the downturn in the economy caused partly by decisions made with the support of Bill Clinton in 1998-99.
Someone commented on Katrina. Evidently the residnets of LA doesn't blame Republicans. They voted for McCain. Another mentioned gay marriage. Gay marriage was voted down by residents in CA. They don't approve of gay marriage either.
>According to one of the pundits, the South will suffer for failing to vote for Obama.(I don't know why, Obama wrote it off long ago and never bothered to acknowledge that we are part of the country-yet he could hold a huge rally in Germany) It's a shame, lots of folks voted for Obama in the southern states, not enough to carry the states, but it's not good that their votes don't count for anything.