We're into the big stuff now

Save it for our kids....the way the Bush Administration did? They created this godforsaken mess with their fiscal irresponsibility and it's going to be difficult to extricate ourselves. Practically every economist believes that the mess will have to get bigger before it gets smaller. To take half measures now would simply be throwing good money after bad.

We bombarded our Reps. with calls and e-mails against the bailout, and they voted for it anyway. Those Reps. who voted against it only did so because they feared losing their jobs, mostly. The real issue is that those we elect sell out to big money, and kiss us off. Why should they care? They need to serve but one term and are then set for life with salary, health insurance, even protection if they ask. We must stop voting Dems and Repubs into office. The two party system is only one away from communism. The big money elites own most of our gov. When we Dems and Repubs stop pointing the finger at one another, and open our eyes to the facts and get rid of these sellouts, we may start to have control over ourselves, and our gov.

Under W and a Rep House and Senate the deficit increased 59%. The AC editors didn't seem so concerned about their "progeny" then. They sent the US into a downward spiral and now it's up to someone else to clean up the mess. Tax cuts for the middle class vs 6 month tax moratorium. Hmmm. I wonder who will make out like bandits on the latter? A small pittance to the average working folks and a windfall to the uber wealthy. But wait, that's been the Rep tax policy since Reagan. SSDD.

Sec of Defense Robert Gates in a "personal estimate" sent in a New Year's eve letter to chairmen of the House & Senate panels overseeing the wars wrote that military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan would cost almost $136 billion for the 2009 budget year that began Oct 1 if they continue at their current pace. This does not take into account President-elect Obama's stated intention to escalate the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. United States simply does not have the resources, human or capital, to wage wars indefinitely in Iraq, in Afghanistan & now in Pakistan. It was like pulling teeth to get Congress to LOAN Detroit auto makers $25 Billion to save them from ruin & to save hundreds of thousands of jobs. I recall when President Bush made the first "emergency" supplemental request for additional, off budget request to fund the war in Iraq. Bush's director of the budget was fired for suggesting the Iraq war would cost $200 Billion. Gen. Eric Shinseki was cashiered out of the Army for saying it would take several hundred thousands U.S. troops to stabilize Iraq. The total is $864 Billion in upfront costs & long term expenses may top $3 to $7 TRILLION. That's "BIG STUFF NOW"!

It's free tax money. We should spread around all we can, it'll stimulate the economy. If we run out of money, we should confiscate more from the big producers and employers and redistribute that. If we run low on money again, we should take more from the big producers and employers. We should end all national military services and education programs (they don't seem to be having much affect...see previous posts) Soon, we'll all be equal, like the other third world countries. Oh yeah, I forgot, that will never happen to us. The messiah will tax us out of poverty.

PT:SSDD. Never anything new. Keep listening to and parroting Rush and company. You know they have the average working Joe's interest at heart.

What people seem to be missing is that the deficit is already so high, it may not be possible to pay it off. The government will try to pay some of it off with hyperinflated dollars. At some point, lenders (the Chinese and others) will demand to be paid back with inflation adjusted returns. There won't be enough real money to do that and the US will declare bankruptcy. Have a nice day.

Keep praising this new Democrat Congress and PEBO. We should put all of our trust in them. Harry Reed wouldn't lie to you. Nancy Pelosi is really sharp at math. We're in good hands!

TechLover, you don't like it when I agree with you? Should I use more politically correct language instead of the easily understood kind? Lots of smoke really makes things soft and fuzzy. Look---even 14PUTT agrees with us. He must be mean too.

"Taxing us and borrowing from the Chinese" has been the policy of our previous and current president, how you associate that with a president-elect who until Jan 20th doesn't have the AUTHORITY to tax the nation is beyond me...The reality is hard to swallow, but I appreciate a futher CIC shooting me the straight talk... We are consumers not producers, and the chickens have come home to roost, deal with it...Unless we change course like the president-elect said we are going to deal with $Trillions of debt... The AC Editorial Staff is like the 350 pound couch potato who played high school football and still thinks he got it..He wtaches all the NFL games on Sunday and tells all his "pickem up truck" buddies on Monday what the QB should have done, Pffft please!! Look, we all should want our presidents to be great, but we have to do our part too... I wanted GWB to be a great president, I wanted Clinton to be a great president, and history will be the judge...The AC Editorial Staff wants to be a Monday morning 350 couch potato that thinks they still got it and attacks and criticizes prematurely..There is a difference between being a visionary and being a visionist, play your roll guys...

Tech/Midwest, are you really going to sit there and contend that the democrats in Congress had nothing to do with the current economic condition? I mean really, forgetting all the political posturing. And Tech, you are certainly old enough to realize that no politician gives a rat's arse about the little guy or anyone else other than themselves.

Where is all this money for bailouts coming from? Only 2 places: borrowing from foreigners and currency debasement. This isn't bullish, it's foolish. China is experiencing only the earliest symptoms of capitalism withdrawal. Fiscally responsible Germany (world's 2nd biggest exporter) is also threatening to break out of rehab. So our first option has expired. I like the idea of trying a six-month federal tax moratorium, but suggest we expand it with a moratorium on subsidies and a reviving of tariffs; in other words, a little OLD world economy. After six months we could at least discover what we can do without, and I suspect it's plenty that most of us will never miss. What we stand to gain is greater personal freedom and a much healthier economy.

"When President-elect Barack Obama warns of trillion-dollar deficits "for years to come," that should get your attention." --- WRONG!!!! As soon as "American Idol" starts again (or whatever fad), folks wouldn't even care. That's the problem media and marketing created, and now both will have to bite the bullet with. BTW, AC, what's this with the "lowest denominator" article titles. AC is appearing more like a tabloid, than a 200 year-old established paper.

"Fiscally responsible Germany" --- that taxes it's citizens about 50%, is how it stays solvent. 50% here, and it's the Revolutionary War II.

It has been my experience that "experts" know the most about a topic that mixed with their opinion results in the ambiguity there isn't a simple predictable answer. Moral of story-you'd be just as well off guessing. Like the supervolcano in Yellowstone is due to pop off destroying two-thirds of life on the planet and producing an iceage. The experts are watching a lot of activity that means either it is fixin to blow or it is easing off steam. Flip a friggin coin. Apply an analogy to economic "experts" and you see we are fixin to blow and they blow. hee,hee,hee.

No "supervolcano" is going to "pop" at Yellowstone. First, it's a site of a long dead volcano (you're not going to have trillions of pounds of ash coming out of Old Faithful!). It's so dead all that remains is a caldera (a basin). But the big concern is the long awaited earthquakes that are overdue at San Andreas and New Madrid faults, let alone the one in Charleston (which probably will be the worst, because eastern earthquakes occur over bedrock that project the seismic waves further -- when Charleston had it's big earthquake, Augusta suffered serious damage, despite being so far away from the epicenter).

Well Sandy over 500 earthquakes of late at Yellowstone and your assumption it is a dead volcano. Don't tell me your an expert. hee,hee,hee. In any case many "expert" beg to differ. Yellowstone is considered an "active" caldera. But supervolcano activity is neither cyclical nor predictable so it could pop off now or ten million years from now. Hence the usefulness of expert opinion and flip a friggin coin.

Hey Biz, I'll support your volcano argument. Yellowstone is a sleeping giant and once awakened could potentially destroy the modern age as we know it...I wonder which seal will be broken when it becomes a reality. I'll probably be somewhere else when it happens. Won't you?

Just-us-4...I'm inclined to agree with your 9:56 post. You're not a pessimist, but a realist.

THIS POST IS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND ANYONE. There is something many of you need to know about the pronoun "it." Its is ALWAYS its possessive form. (It's is a contraction for it is.) Reviewing quickly: It's always its when it possesses something and it's when we mean it is.

Japan has much more, and folks haven't seen a volcanic eruption other than steam venting. BTW, as even Carl Sagan said, in science there's no "authorities". After the "global warming" fiasco, it's best to treat expert opinions with a l-a-r-g-e grain of salt (Alaska is currently battling it's third harshest recorded winter, as it is), for a very good reason -- climate can't be replicated to test the outcome. Projected models and fancy math doesn't trump observational evidence over time.

Well justus, just how many of the people who helped build this nation didn't own the first slave? And how many came here after 1865 who worked hard to build this nation? You look out of a mighty small window when you look at the past and the present of this country. You talk about people who have never left their zip code. You post like you haven't.

During a recession, such as what we have now, the government has no choice but to run at a deficit. Tax receipts go down during a recession, so the government has less income. Tight fiscal policy now will only trigger a worse depression. The big problem was when Republican Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush ran up astonishing deficits during times of economic growth, thus inflating the economic bubble which has now burst.

Techlover, if you are going to blabber, stick to facts. Both Bush and McCain tried reigning in Frddie and Fannie only to get defeated by the likes of Dodd and Frank. Seems it was DIMs who forced banks to be "fair" in lending to those who couldn't repay their loans. It was Maxine (Kerosene Mouth) Waters, DIM-TX who said "if it (F&F) ain't broke, don't fix it", so they didn't and you see the mess we are in. I ain't saying Bush and the Repubs didn't spend/allow spending by the Repubs like drunken sailors, but it is a lie that the AC (and we conservatives) didn't take them to the woodshed quite often.

Cain, our military is the reason there are hundreds of thousands of workers with jobs producing the materials we fight with, as well as providing jobs to hundreds of thousands more on active duty and Reserves.. I don't recall Shinseki being "cashiered" out of the Army, as he had a retirement parade in his honor and wasn't stripped of his rank. I did agree with him that we needed more troops in Iraq long before the surge. Seems Obama has learned that lesson and is sending more troops into Afghanistan. Better to kill them there than here.

First and foremost, let's not forget that President-elect Obama is inheriting this fiscal mess, not something of his own doing. But he's the one who has been elected to do something about cleaning it up. The economy is heading in a downward spiral. His plan is to pump some money into homes in hopes that those people will spend and help the economy. As the old saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. I'm one of the ones that plan doesn't work on though. When Bush gave the stimulus checks (and I didn't hear crying about a Generational Theft Act then), I took the money and put it in the bank. I'm not one to spend just for the sake of spending. If Obama sends me a stimulus check, I'll do the same thing, invest it. But as I said before, Obama didn't create this mess but he's stuck with dealing with it. I seem to remember that Clinton left Bush with a huge surplus which Bush squandered away just like his legacy. JUSTUS4 - OUCH!! I4PUTT - The last 8 years have been so bad, we've got to try something else. We put our trust in Bush and he let us down, so he got voted out along with all the other Repubs. Now, Bush is about out and it's Obama's turn.

Republicans voted against regulation, too, jack. Check it out. The banks lobbied Republicans the hardest(most money spent) and Repubs caved. I also guess that we need to continue wars just so we can employ people to build war machinery. Unfortunately, DMac, Dem leaders are already trying to thwart one of Obama's campaign planks, giving a tax break to employers who hire new workers. They are saying that it's "big bucks-little bang". I hope Obama kicks their behinds into line.....

Dems want to spend, spend, and give stimulus packages to all NOT caring one iota as to where we are supposed to get the funds to back this craziness. What we need to do, and Obama better get it straight, is downsize the government and stop their greediness NOW. Corporations are NOT to blame for the mess we are in. Any one with a shred of intelligence knows and sees that it is laid directly at the feet of big government.

I'd have to say that giving loans to those who can't repay their loan back is no different than today's flaunted "reverse mortgage", allowing those in this area a reverse mortgage up to 417,000 dollars without ever having to repay the loan as long as they stay in the house. What happens when they die? We're talking old people here, folks, not those young (rule listed 65+ and own home). Do those who get the house in the will have to repay it then? Does it get foreclosed? What then? Do receipts of everything you use that reverse mortgage have to be kept so the bank can say "Yep, we own that 9000 buck entertainment center with everything in it...and the solid 12-seat maple/oak/pine dining room set...oops, that stone floor remake is ours, tear it up"...?

And will those in future, or people my age now (33) get the same thing later? I seriously, SERIOUSLY doubt it. Great on the fairness there but then again, I'm not putting myself in that fiscal problem. I'd rather live in a shotgun house out in the country with no internet or cable or things like that. I've learned enough to know when something's f'd up.