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2008-09-25 Home Front: Politix

Pres. Bush addresses Nation on Bailout Plan

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Posted by Steve White 2008-09-25 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 Mr. Wife said it was one of the most effective speeches of President Bush's career.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-25 07:49|| 2008-09-25 07:49|| Front Page Top

#2 It put me out like a light...

Posted by badanov 2008-09-25 07:50|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2008-09-25 07:50|| Front Page Top

#3 The two means used to stop financial problems in the post-WWII economy are growth and inflation.

Neither will work this time, because both use credit to overcome problems in credit. Like using one credit card to pay another maxed out credit card's bill, yet still spending like a drunken sailor.

Bush is trying to get around the problem with growth. Obama wants to use inflation by spending huge amounts of money.

In other news today, the FDIC has announced it needs $170B right now to insure savings accounts because of dozens of anticipated bank failures.

And China has directed all its banks to stop interbank loans with any US banks.

Nobody has yet proposed that the US must immediately have a balanced budget, and that to pay for economic recovery, they must have at from $100-$500B annual revenue surplus.

The cuts must either come from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense, or every other part of the government which when put together about equals one of these big four.

Perhaps 25% of the federal expenditures will have to be stopped.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-09-25 09:44|| 2008-09-25 09:44|| Front Page Top

#4 Balancing the budget right now is an immediate way to recession. Immediate.

The chinese thing interests me. Does that include American banks that the Chinese have bought pieces of?

Posted by Mike N. 2008-09-25 10:24|| 2008-09-25 10:24|| Front Page Top

#5 The Washington Post has an article on alternative solutions for your mental delectation, Mike N.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-25 11:01|| 2008-09-25 11:01|| Front Page Top

#6 W looked like a naughty little boy who'd gotten his pecker caught in a ringer. He might be right about the $700 billion but it makes me furious that he let it get to this point. Of course, it's not all his fault. There is plenty of blame to go around for all the crooks in Congress. They should have seen this coming. It didn't take a psychic to see that all those loans were gonna go south. But they were all too busy riding the gravy train.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-09-25 12:05|| 2008-09-25 12:05|| Front Page Top

#7 I commented on this last night, but will repeat here that I think Bush's domestic record is abysmal. He not only let this stuff happen under his watch, he did nothing to set an example of limiting expenditures for his first 6 years in office. Cripes, he didn't veto a thing during his first term. Then he introduces the largest new entitlement program in 40 years. Just nuts, especially during a time of war.

I admire what he has done in the war on islamo-nuts. But, other than lowering taxes, he has done nothing on the domestic front that any big government democrat wouldn't do.

Posted by remoteman 2008-09-25 13:47|| 2008-09-25 13:47|| Front Page Top

#8 President Bush has been submitting proposals to fix this thing for years. Congress, especially dear Barney Franks and some others who have gotten lots of money from Fannie and Freddie, have buried Bush's proposals. Remember that since 9/11 President Bush has been spending his political capital making sure the military can fight the war on terror, which left him precious little for demonstrably unwinnable fights. Also remember, he's been fighting the Democrats, the media, and the Conservatives angry that he didn't impose every single one of their desires.

What I saw last night was the Cassandra who'd been ignored, the afternoon of the day after the Trojan Horse had been pulled by the cheering crowd through Troy's gates.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-25 14:05|| 2008-09-25 14:05|| Front Page Top

#9 TW, I agree that there were lots of cards stacked against him, but Bush did not make this a priority back when it could have been dealt with. He did not hold one or several national broadcasts on the subject and specifically call socialist fools like Barney Frank to task. He did not get on Greenspan to tighten the money supply and raise interest rates. Bottom line is he could have done a whole lot more and did not do it.

Posted by remoteman 2008-09-25 14:28|| 2008-09-25 14:28|| Front Page Top

#10 Yeah, he had a real war to fight and these were the same bastards who were trying to defeat him and the nation in that war. He could only do so many things. Thanks to 9/11 and the donks, he got to do only NCLB.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-25 14:35|| 2008-09-25 14:35|| Front Page Top

#11 As I said, there's blame enough to go around and Barney Frank deserves special mention. But Bush had the bully pulpit. Sure, he was busy with two separate wars and God knows what else. But it's gonna be a lot tougher paying for those wars now and it's gonna be a lot harder for McCain to win this election. And Bush's Treasury secretary kept telling us everything was fine. You'd think he'd have spent a little more time considering all the ramifications of sub prime mortgages for illegal immigrants. Maybe the first thing Bush should've done was to fire the guy. Hell, even I could see this coming. I didn't know it'd be as bad as it is. I didn't know it was nationwide because I'm not the Treasury secretary. I thought it was just a San Diego thing where the cost of an average home is half a million bucks. Nobody makes enough to pay that kind of a mortgage. That's insane.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-09-25 15:40|| 2008-09-25 15:40|| Front Page Top

#12 It could still be Snow.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-25 15:42|| 2008-09-25 15:42|| Front Page Top

#13 Bush spoke many times in public -- just because the media wouldn't cover what he said, doesn't mean he did not take it before the people --

I heard him lots of times, but that's because I either watch most of his major speeches, press conferences or read them, cause I know the press will not report what he has said --

Check out this link for a detail description

Just like they haven't reported that Iraq has agreed on elections (one of those major benchmarks they so demanded)

And I'll bet, I'm like most Americans, I heard it, but since all this is not one of my "issues" I didn't really hear. Yea, I knew housing was in a slump, it's been there before. Even hearing what I heard, it never crossed my mind this could happen, and I lived through the bust in the 80's and the dot com mess.

I'm pretty sure if Bush had screamed to me, it probably wouldn't have had me standing on the street corner, yelling for someone to do something. I'm just not wired into the economy, so again, not an issue for me.

Most Americans, don't focus on "the economy" until it's election time, and someone has to say, "It's the economy, stupid," and then it becomes an issue.

So I'm not sure I can blame Bush, cause I wasn't listening to him when he brought it up.

Chris Dodd and Barney Franks really do need to be mention right along with Bush...

Posted by Sherry">Sherry 2008-09-25 16:35|| 2008-09-25 16:35|| Front Page Top

#14 I don't trust anyone in Washington or Wall Street anymore. I don't trust Congress. I don't trust the main stream media. I don't trust our educational institutions. I don't trust our insurance companies. I don't trust any of the lobbyists. I don't trust regulation. And the current people in government don't trust its citizens anymore.

Bush has tried to bring about reform but there were too many Democrats blocking him at every turn in Congress. Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Nancy Pelosi ought to be tried for treason. There are others to blame too.

The military is about the only group I trust and respect.

This country has the greatest economic engine in the world if the friggin politicians would get out of the way. Please unshackle this economic engine. If they got out of the way, you would see an economic resurgence the likes of which has not been seen. There would be plentiful, good jobs again in this country. They wouldn't be outsourced. We have too much regulation that is strangling our growth. There ought to be a freeze on any new bills that require new spending for about five years. Earmarks should be eliminated altogether. Instead of Biden saying it is patriotic to pay taxes we ought to be saying it is patriotic for Congress to not be spending our hard-earned money. We truly have reached a point where we don't have taxation with any kind of representation. We just have a bunch of self-serving politicians having a feeding frenzy at the public trough.

Washington is greedy for both money and power. Money seems to bring power.

If reform is going to come it is going to have to come via the vote.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-25 17:02|| 2008-09-25 17:02|| Front Page Top

#15 We need to get some of the taxes off our backs too. Obviously Washington doesn't know better than we do what to do with citizens' money.

Would it be any worse if we (the voters) voted directly for what money gets spent in D.C. and eliminated Congress. We seldom notice when the government is shut down for several days. The technology is probably here to do that.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-25 17:09|| 2008-09-25 17:09|| Front Page Top

#16 JohnQC, I agree wholeheartedly re regulation and government spending. The big non-defense spending items are Medicare and Social Security. Those have to be reigned in/cut back. Not going to be pretty or popular, but it has to be done.

We have to get a handle on medical costs too. The friggin trial lawyers have to be reigned in. They certainly add to the costs. I would argue that the patent protection for pharmaceuticals need to be extended, with the caveat that advertising to the general public for these drugs ceases. That way the pharma companies don't need to recoup their R&D costs so quickly and can accept a lower margin/lower price in the drugs. We should also enable health insurance to go national, not state by state, each with its own rules. There has to be a benefit to economy of scale with paperwork, with pools of those covered etc.

Anyway, time for some real change, none of which Obambi is going to bring.

Posted by remoteman 2008-09-25 18:54|| 2008-09-25 18:54|| Front Page Top

#17 Congress and their little slimy cousins in the financial sector have almost succeeded in sinking the US economy, which, by the way, was one of the objectives of Bin Laden's 9-11 attacks.

We have enemies foreign, and we have enemies domestic. They are both equal danger to the survival of the Republic. I am not being funny in this one.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2008-09-25 22:33|| 2008-09-25 22:33|| Front Page Top

#18 I'm a retiree. I've worked all my life and paid into Social Security and since the mid-1960s into Medicare. I still do some consulting and I pay income taxes on the income. I also pay a self-employment tax that is about 13% of the earned income. I still pay a fair chunk of change every month for Medicare and a Medicare supplement. I pay taxes on income earned and now I pay taxes on income, thanks to Clinton on retirement funds (invested funds) as I withdraw the money. This is double taxation. When I hear that Social Security is an entitlement, I don't know why that term is used. If the government cannot manage these funds, I'll suggest that I keep my money and I'll mange my own health care. One problem is that government has looted the Social Security trust fund for other things and now it is going broke. The Medicare prescription drug benefit was a bad decision. That was a costly sop to older Americans and elderly lobby groups.

There is considerable room for reform in the insurance company, drug company, doctor interface. Doctors tend to push the new high priced drugs whereas an old inexpensive drug would work just as good or better. Some doctors in Kentucky were fined for taking perks in sweetheart arrangements with the drug companies a couple of years ago. The doctors were receiving perks from the drug companies for prescribing Lupron, an expensive drug used control the spread of prostate cancer. The drug was thought to control testosterone which was thought to be linked to the spread of prostate cancer. Now it's not clear that testosterone is linked to PC. Lupron has some considerable risks and some nasty side effects.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-25 23:10|| 2008-09-25 23:10|| Front Page Top

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