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Where is the Outrage??

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Tue 17 Mar , 2009 1:25 pm
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20083.html" target="_blank
Quote:
In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, Grassley (R-Iowa) said: “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards [AIG executives] if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.”
Seconded.


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Tue 17 Mar , 2009 1:28 pm
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I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the state of Iowa.

for Senator Grassley :cheers: :toast:

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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Tue 17 Mar , 2009 1:51 pm
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On the previous page of this thread, Cendril gives us lots of video from Peter Schiff. This is suposedly part of his "evidence" that Austrian economists got it right about the current economic woes and made "accurate predictions".

First, be aware that Peter Schiff is NOT an economist. But like many in the libertarian fold, he claims to know more than they do even though he lacks the formal education and the degree in the field. His degree is in finance which I guess is closer to economics than being a baby doctor is.

Second, if the man is not a fraud he is treading dangerouosly down that same path.

Here is an excellent and very detailed article detailing the "accurate predictions" of Peter Shiff:

http://www.erictyson.com/articles/20090213" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

here is part of it showing you just how accurate Schiff has been in his predictions:
Quote:
Thanks to the wonders of video technology, we have an accurate record of Schiff's views from this 2002 television interview. What is notable here is that in this 2002 interview, Schiff was saying nearly the same exact things that he did during 2008 and in his recent interview with me.

At the time of this 2002 interview, the U.S. stock market had already suffered steep losses and the economy was in recession at the time of this 2002 interview. The highlights of Schiff's predictions: he saw substantial downside over the next couple of years for the stock market. He predicted that the Dow, which was around 10,000 at the time, would plummet to between 2,000 and 4,000 and he even went so far as to say that the Dow might fall below 2,000. He expected the NASDAQ to drop to 500 from its then level of 1,700. He also said that the dollar was going to fall sharply and interest rates were going to go through the roof accompanied by dramatic inflation.

On all of these counts, Schiff wasn't just wrong but ended up being hugely wrong.

Now, fast forward to May 30, 2008 and the U.S. News article, "Permabear Peter Schiff's Worst-Case Scenario." Let's review some of the key predictions he made in that piece As for his investing predictions he said, "I'm getting my clients' money outside of the United States as fast as they can send it to me...You've got to own resources and energy...I've been buying gold, silver, industrial metals, and all kinds of stocks. My main theme is the global economy will survive and the U.S. economy is a disaster. Everything is about how you benefit from the increased purchasing power and rising standard of living in the rest of the world."

This was wrong as commodity prices have plunged since this interview (see graph below). Foreign stocks actually declined more in 2008 than did U.S. stocks so Schiff was wrong on that count too.
If you read the article you will see that Schiff has pretty much a one song act that he has been doing for several years now. He loves to predict the sky is falling and when you do that year after year after year, eventually its going to rain from the heavens.

The article exposing Schiff was written by Eric Tyson
Quote:
Eric Tyson is a best-selling personal finance book author and has penned five national best sellers. He is also the only author to have four of his books simultaneously on Business Week's business book bestseller list. His Personal Finance for Dummies, a Wall Street Journal best-seller, won the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Business Book of the Year. His latest book, Let's Get Real About Money, is an action oriented guide to developing and practicing the best financial habits and strategies. Eric's syndicated newspaper column is read by millions of readers weekly. He is a former columnist and award-winning journalist for the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle.

Eric's work has been featured and quoted in hundreds of local and national publications and media outlets including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Money, Worth, Parenting, USA Today and on the NBC Today Show, ABC, Fox News, CNBC, PBS Nightly Business Report, CNN, and on CBS national radio, NPR's Marketplace Money and Bloomberg Business Radio. He's also been a featured speaker at a White House conference on retirement planning.
The last paragraph of the article may be one of the most revealing when you judge just how "accurate" Mr. Schiff is in the field of economics:
Quote:
Update on 2/23/09: I just got off the phone from doing a radio interview with Jason Hartman for his real estate and financial show. Early on, he asked me about various gurus and Peter Schiff's name quickly came up. Schiff he said had been a guest on his program in the past. Without missing a beat, Mr. Hartman proceeded to tell me how he invested $200,000 through Schiff's firm and now had just half of that left!
And this is the man CG points to to support his claims. In fact, on February 9 of this very year, Peter Schiff was quoted in the Wall Street Journal admitting his shortcomings:
Quote:
My central investing premise, a weakening dollar and safety in gold, commodities and foreign stocks, didn't materialize in 2008.
translation: my predictions were wrong.

_________________

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Wed 18 Mar , 2009 4:10 pm
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Dave_LF wrote:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20083.html" target="_blank
Quote:
In a comment aired this afternoon on WMT, an Iowa radio station, Grassley (R-Iowa) said: “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards [AIG executives] if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.”
Seconded.
Now if only they'd look just a little higher for those who really created this mess.

If you really want outrage, try this.

President Obama, Why Did You Pay Blackwater $70 Million in February?
Quote:
For those already outraged at the AIG bonus scandal, here is a fact that should add more fuel to the fire: The Obama administration has paid the mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater nearly $70 million to operate in Iraq and, according to The Washington Times, may keep the company on the payroll months past the official expiration of its Iraq contract in May. I reviewed Blackwater’s recent transactions with the Obama State Department and discovered a $45 million payment to Blackwater on February 4, 2009 for ‘protective services — Iraq.’ It is described as a ‘funding action only.’ Here is the interesting part: The estimated ‘Ultimate Completion Date’ is 5/07/2011. The Washington Times (as described below) reported on a $22 million payment to Blackwater on February 2. Combined with the $45 million payment I discovered, that’s nearly $67 million in 72 hours. Not bad for a company supposedly going down in flames.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Wed 18 Mar , 2009 4:34 pm
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Blackwater should be removed from all government contracts. The US government has no business employing such a firm when we have our own armed forces.

Of course we need to find out who really caused this mess. That is why I have been saying loudly and clearly that we need a full blown, full scale no holds barred Congressional investigation into all of it and leave no stone unturned. It matters not to me which politicians, economists and such others get implicated in the investigation. The American people need answers. Anger and rage is not enough.

The outrage I... and I suspect others... feel for the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been funnelled into efforts such as AIG dwarfs any outrage I feel for Blackwater.

This should be read by anyone looking for causes of this mess

The Executive Summary minces no words in their main finding:
Quote:
"This Report has one overriding message: financial deregulation led directly to the financial meltdown."
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40531" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
Quote:
"Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," a report released by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation details a dozen crucial deregulatory moves over the last decade -- each a direct response to heavy lobbying from Wall Street and the broader financial sector, as the report details. Combined, these deregulatory moves helped pave the way for the current financial meltdown.

Here are 12 deregulatory steps to financial meltdown:

1. The repeal of Glass-Steagall
The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 formally repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and related rules, which prohibited banks from offering investment, commercial banking, and insurance services. In 1998, Citibank and Travelers Group merged on the expectation that Glass-Steagall would be repealed. Then they set out, successfully, to make it so. The subsequent result was the infusion of the investment bank speculative culture into the world of commercial banking. The 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall helped create the conditions in which banks invested monies from checking and savings accounts into creative financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps, investment gambles that led many of the banks to ruin and rocked the financial markets in 2008.

2. Off-the-books accounting for banks
Holding assets off the balance sheet generally allows companies to avoid disclosing “toxic” or money-losing assets to investors in order to make the company appear more valuable than it is. Accounting rules -- lobbied for by big banks -- permitted the accounting fictions that continue to obscure banks' actual condition.

3. CFTC blocked from regulating derivatives
Financial derivatives are unregulated. By all accounts this has been a disaster, as Warren Buffett's warning that they represent "weapons of mass financial destruction" has proven prescient -- they have amplified the financial crisis far beyond the unavoidable troubles connected to the popping of the housing bubble. During the Clinton administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sought to exert regulatory control over financial derivatives, but the agency was quashed by opposition from Robert Rubin and Fed Chair Alan Greenspan.

4. Formal financial derivative deregulation: the Commodities Futures Modernization Act
The deregulation -- or non-regulation -- of financial derivatives was sealed in 2000, with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. Its passage orchestrated by the industry-friendly Senator Phil Gramm, the Act prohibits the CFTC from regulating financial derivatives.

5. SEC removes capital limits on investment banks and the voluntary regulation regime

In 1975, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) promulgated a rule requiring investment banks to maintain a debt to-net capital ratio of less than 15 to 1. In simpler terms, this limited the amount of borrowed money the investment banks could use. In 2004, however, the SEC succumbed to a push from the big investment banks -- led by Goldman Sachs, and its then-chair, Henry Paulson -- and authorized investment banks to develop net capital requirements based on their own risk assessment models. With this new freedom, investment banks pushed ratios to as high as 40 to 1. This super-leverage not only made the investment banks more vulnerable when the housing bubble popped, it enabled the banks to create a more tangled mess of derivative investments -- so that their individual failures, or the potential of failure, became systemic crises.

6. Basel II weakening of capital reserve requirements for banks
Rules adopted by global bank regulators -- known as Basel II, and heavily influenced by the banks themselves -- would let commercial banks rely on their own internal risk-assessment models (exactly the same approach as the SEC took for investment banks). Luckily, technical challenges and intra-industry disputes about Basel II have delayed implementation -- hopefully permanently -- of the regulatory scheme.

7. No predatory lending enforcement
Even in a deregulated environment, the banking regulators retained authority to crack down on predatory lending abuses. Such enforcement activity would have protected homeowners, and lessened though not prevented the current financial crisis. But the regulators sat on their hands. The Federal Reserve took three formal actions against subprime lenders from 2002 to 2007. The Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which has authority over almost 1,800 banks, took three consumer-protection enforcement actions from 2004 to 2006.

8. Federal preemption of state enforcement against predatory lending
When the states sought to fill the vacuum created by federal non-enforcement of consumer protection laws against predatory lenders, the Feds -- responding to commercial bank petitions -- jumped to attention to stop them. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision each prohibited states from enforcing consumer protection rules against nationally chartered banks.

9. Blocking the courthouse doors: Assignee Liability Escape
Under the doctrine of “assignee liability,” anyone profiting from predatory lending practices should be held financially accountable, including Wall Street investors who bought bundles of mortgages (even if the investors had no role in abuses committed by mortgage originators). With some limited exceptions, however, assignee liability does not apply to mortgage loans, however. Representative Bob Ney -- a great friend of financial interests, and who subsequently went to prison in connection with the Abramoff scandal -- worked hard, and successfully, to ensure this effective immunity was maintained.

10. Fannie and Freddie enter subprimeAt the peak of the housing boom, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were dominant purchasers in the subprime secondary market. The Government-Sponsored Enterprises were followers, not leaders, but they did end up taking on substantial subprime assets -- at least $57 billion. The purchase of subprime assets was a break from prior practice, justified by theories of expanded access to homeownership for low-income families and rationalized by mathematical models allegedly able to identify and assess risk to newer levels of precision. In fact, the motivation was the for-profit nature of the institutions and their particular executive incentive schemes. Massive lobbying -- including especially but not only of Democratic friends of the institutions -- enabled them to divert from their traditional exclusive focus on prime loans.

Fannie and Freddie are not responsible for the financial crisis. They are responsible for their own demise, and the resultant massive taxpayer liability.

11. Merger mania
The effective abandonment of antitrust and related regulatory principles over the last two decades has enabled a remarkable concentration in the banking sector, even in advance of recent moves to combine firms as a means to preserve the functioning of the financial system. The megabanks achieved too-big-to-fail status. While this should have meant they be treated as public utilities requiring heightened regulation and risk control, other deregulatory maneuvers (including repeal of Glass-Steagall) enabled them to combine size, explicit and implicit federal guarantees, and reckless high-risk investments.

12. Credit rating agency failure
With Wall Street packaging mortgage loans into pools of securitized assets and then slicing them into tranches, the resultant financial instruments were attractive to many buyers because they promised high returns. But pension funds and other investors could only enter the game if the securities were highly rated.

The credit rating agencies enabled these investors to enter the game, by attaching high ratings to securities that actually were high risk -- as subsequent events have revealed. The credit rating agencies have a bias to offering favorable ratings to new instruments because of their complex relationships with issuers, and their desire to maintain and obtain other business dealings with issuers.

This institutional failure and conflict of interest might and should have been forestalled by the SEC, but the Credit Rating Agencies Reform Act of 2006 gave the SEC insufficient oversight authority. In fact, the SEC must give an approval rating to credit ratings agencies if they are adhering to their own standards -- even if the SEC knows those standards to be flawed.
Here is an additional link. It has other links which will take you to the full report.

http://wallstreetwatch.org/soldoutreport.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

_________________

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Wed 18 Mar , 2009 7:55 pm
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Ooh, here's a juicy tidbit.

Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA 27) knew these bonsus would be coming because, contrary to current tendencies, he actually read the bailout bill and voted against it because it didn't prohibit these bonuses.

Sherman's position on the bailout - warning - pdf

Too bad more congressmen don't read the bills they vote for. Failure to do so is what helped get us into this mess.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Wed 18 Mar , 2009 8:11 pm
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One of the interesting things that is coming out of all this anger about the AIG payments is that far too many people see these as an issue in and of itself. Sometimes bad things can teach us good lessons. We must go back to the beginning to see what caused AIG and other companies to get in this "too big to fail" position in the first place. We need to examine the governments lack of oversight and regulation in the banking and insurance industry as a result of the Glass-Steagall repeal. We need to talk to people like William Seidman, one of the creators of the high risk derivative market, and find out despite his own advice, Alan Greenspan fought regulation of that market.

AIG is a pathetic story. The bonus money deserves the outrage of the American people. But that is only the top one foot of a very deep hole that must be explored. If we do not do that, then its only populist rage that teaches us nothing that is going to help us in the future.

_________________

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 12:41 pm
 
 
Pres. Bush would have been ripped a new one for this:

President Obama Jokes About Special Olympics:
March 19, 2009 8:56 PM

The first appearance by a sitting president on "The Tonight Show" may well end up being the last.

President Obama, in his taping with Jay Leno Thursday afternoon, attempted to yuk it up with the funnyman, and ended up insulting the disabled.

Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he's gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

He bowled a 129, the president said.

"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.

It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.



When asked about the remark, the White House said the president did not intend to offend.

"The president made an off-hand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said. "He thinks the Special Olympics is a wonderful program that gives an opportunity for people with disabilities from around the world


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Alatar
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 1:37 pm
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I can't believe this is headline news! I have a nephew with Downs Syndrome and even his parents wouldn't be offended by that. Dumb comment maybe, but is that really the US's biggest worry at the moment?

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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 2:01 pm
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Alatar - you are correct. And a good indication of it is the reaction from others. The only people really making... or attempting to make ... a big deal out of this are those on the Right who oppose President Obama in all things regardless of merit or details. CNN reported this morning that they asked the Special Olympics for a comment and they declined to say anything about it. You could probably bet the farm that the various right wing wags from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity will blather about it all day today and work the idea of the lefts political correctness into the mix just to spice it up.

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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 3:23 pm
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Alatar wrote:
I can't believe this is headline news! I have a nephew with Downs Syndrome and even his parents wouldn't be offended by that. Dumb comment maybe, but is that really the US's biggest worry at the moment?
If Bush had said it, and immediately apologized, that wouldn't satisfy anyone.

Outrage is very selective when it is directed to members that party when they make racist jokes about black non-Democrats, sexist jokes about female non-Democrats, and jokes about the handicapped or mentally challenged.

I need to be sent to a Conce^^^^ Sensitivity Retraining camp, because I think this is absolutely tasteless on the part of Glorious Leader.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 3:30 pm
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The choice of your words proclaiming President Obama as "Glorious Leader" in the manner of the government of North Korea says all that needs to be said about your motivations, intentions and objectivity. Anytime someone from the Right uses such a term its easy to predict what follows will be a swipe at the President made for political purposes.

It seems that the people behind the Special Olympics are far from offended

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7129997&page=1" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

in this case - the outrage - every feigned bit of it - is found just where we thought it would be found.

Last edited by sauronsfinger on Fri 20 Mar , 2009 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

_________________

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 4:07 pm
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RELStuart wrote:
. States are looking at running out of money to fund unemployment.
And as it turns out, there was/is funding for unemploymeny benefits in the stimulus package, but some governors are turning it down.
Quote:
Some other Republican governors have also announced reservations about accepting the federal money, particularly when it comes to expanding jobless benefits.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week announced that he turned down $555 million of federal stimulus funding that would expand the state's unemployment benefits. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he would not accept nearly $100 million to expand unemployment benefits. And South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has said he only wants to use the federal money to pay down debt.

Other Republican governors including Charlie Crist of Florida and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California have welcomed the stimulus bounty.
I can sort of understand concerns about strings being attached - my current job is federally funded and holy cow, it came with some bothersome stipulations regarding any further funding I can apply for and accept. But, at the same time, this is smelling like political posturing at the expense of people suffering.

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vison
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 4:19 pm
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What a tempest in a tea pot, honest to god. Why can't you Americans get over this stupid "gotcha" politics? Your country is up to its jawbone in shit, pretty near anything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and here you are, even normally nice sensible people, still dragging Mr. Bush into the picture as if he had anything useful to bring, sniping at Mr. Obama over NOTHING, and meanwhile, the shit piles higher and higher.

I hope you bloody drown in it. I'm beginning to think you deserve it.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 4:49 pm
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Vison

I, myself, am just waiting for the Visigoths to show up. And they are a knockin'.

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 5:08 pm
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Visigoths? Pftph. Call me when the Ostrogoths show up.


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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 5:10 pm
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They showed up 8 years ago. :P

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 5:23 pm
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Well then I guess it's time for the Irish to save civilization again. You guys up to it? Will it involve lots of Guiness?


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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 5:24 pm
Filthy darwinian hobbit
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A Visigoth is the reflective band goths have to wear to show up in car headlights at night.

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vison
Post subject: Re: Where is the Outrage??
Posted: Fri 20 Mar , 2009 6:14 pm
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After reading yet another economist's article about the current meltdown including the mess in Iceland, I am more than ever convinced that the human male has about reached the end of his evolutionary usefulness.

Ask yourself, people: How many women were running major banks/investment houses, etc.?

One of the only financial institutions in Iceland that has not utterly collapsed - and if you think America's financial institutions are awful, find out about Iceland - that one is run by a woman.

You know, I'm not joking.

I think men are lovely and make wonderful pets if kept in the proper conditions, but over the last 10,000 - 20,000 years they have shown an absolute incapability to run the world without lurching from one disaster to another.

eta: If any male here is offended, I'm terribly sorry. Grovelingly sorry. So sorry I can hardly see straight. :(

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