Andy
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2008
- Messages
- 3,497
I would say it was typical Washington played out. Washington has a history of causing problems and then setting themselves up as the solution. Here we see an attempt to remedy a problem started in the mid 90s with a directive to encourage the industry, through the two GSEs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to give out high risk loans to people with low or questionable finances.
Now, after the logical results of such practices have caused problems throughout the industry, they want to hand out billions in tax payer money to the people who made the bad loans.
Government isn't the solution, Government is the cause. We need to stop interfering in the free market, and reign in our out of control GSEs. The market will iron itself out if we simply allow the system to work.
I would not work to shrink the gap at all. This gap, is a gap of ideology. It's a gap of differences in opinion and perspective. The only way to reduce this gap is to have everyone believe the same on the issues.
But since I have no intention to change my views to theirs, there will always be a gap. If they wish to join my views, the doors are open and all are welcome. To that end, I will proclaim my views and the evidence I back them with. But we all know not all will come to my side, and I will not go to theirs. Thus the gap will always be.
The ones who are at fault are, the Government through GSEs, the Lenders who made the loans, the People who accepted those loans, in that order.
The Government, through the two GSEs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged subprime loans, and thus made the loans appear to be safe since they were doing them.
The Lenders believed that since GSEs were accepting such loans, that they could then make these dangerous loans and pass all the risk off to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, banking on the idea government would bail them out if there was a problem. Although it was true that Government did bail them out, it still didn't spare many from the cost of bad loans.
The people believed that they could make bad loans and that they could then refinance them later. Most knew they were taking out a loan too large to pay for, but did it anyway.
In the end, Government needs to learn to stay out of the market. They only screw things up. Lenders need to learn that passing off risk will only work for a limited time. Eventually it will catch up with you. The people need to learn to not take out loans they can't pay for. Don't assume that 5 years from now, you'll be swimming in cash or able to refinance when that subprime loan jump up 10 points.
It is true that Republicans are generally against regulation of the free market. But we are not against all regulations, as we want to regulate the wasteful spending of public money by government, and the out of control companies under our care.
McCain supported new oversight and controls of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when the reports came out that the CEO was manipulating accounting numbers to get bonuses, and that the companies assets were questionable and full of risky loans, and ultimately engaging in fraud, if not equal to, exceeding the levels found at Enron.
However, we do see some problems with our health care system, in the way insurance is handled, and how Medicare effects the industry. We do need to find a solution to these problems.
That said, we don't need to socialize the industry the way some have indicated. That level of regulation will only cause problems similar to our oil situation where we have trillions of barrels of oil under our feet, yet we prevent ourselves from getting it, forcing us to import 2/3rds of our oil.
Seeing how badly government handled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and seeing how regulations have forced us to import more than half our oil, putting government in charge of health care will only lead to similar devastating results.
What the Senator fails to understand is that all taxes hit the lower class. When you tax any group of people, especially the rich, you simply cause them to shelter their income in other ways, like stock options and company benefits. In the end, government will spend more, believing this new tax will bring in more money. Then when the new money doesn't show up, they have to raise taxes on the middle and lower class to cover it.
Some studies? So some studies say the opposite? Some say they don't like tax loop holes that employers have. Isn't this a loop hole?
Our goal is to separate insurance from job. We need to make insurance untied to peoples jobs. It is not right for a person to lose their insurance just because they switched jobs. But in order to do this, we have to change the rules.
Would anyone stand to lose their automobile insurance or home insurance if they went to different company? Of course not. We need health insurance to be the same. The reason insurance companies abuse their patients is because they know you can not choose a different policy. They know you are stuck with the insurance plan the company gets. That needs to change.
Yes of course. The ability for a company to make billions in bad loans, all while lining their pockets with bonuses gotten by cooking the books, and then passing off the failed companies debts onto others, is something that only should be allowed for democrat appointees to GSE bailed out by tax payers... right?
No the system should minimize the ability for massive debts to be passed on to others. Personal accountability should be required for all people. If Fannie Mae has taught us anything, it is that when a company knows someone else will pay for their mistakes, they are more willing to make those mistakes. Similarly, if bankruptcy is more difficult, and you know you are more likely to be held responsible for bad loans, you will be more cautious about making them.
Our climate is in a constant state of change. Global warming has being happening since the last ice age, with or without human intervention. Further our sun goes though changes too, sometimes emitting more heat energy, and sometimes less.
Finely more than 90% of the so-called greenhouse effect is due to water. Of the remaining 10%, only about 8% of it is due to carbon dioxide. Of the carbon dioxide emitted into atmosphere annually, only 3.5% of it is attributed to humans, and that includes breathing. This means only 0.28% of the total greenhouse effect is possibly due to humans.
Since the total greenhouse effect raises Earths temperature by a mere 33ºC, this means the human contribution to the so-called greenhouse effect can't be much more than 0.09ºC, or less than 1 tenth of one degree, and I'm rounding those numbers up.
In other words, our impact on global warming is at best barely identifiable and falls within the margin of error, and at worst, is non-existent.
I do not support caps on carbon emissions, since as stated, there is no real effect on global warming. It's more due to natural changes in our atmosphere and changes in the output of our sun.
As for so-called clean coal, from the proponents own stand point, there is no such thing as clean coal, since burning any coal will produce CO2.
But the clean coal program is like so many government programs that absorb millions in government tax payer funded grants, and never delivers. McCain stands for only funding things that actually produce results.
If a group asked for funding from you for a new type of grass that grew only 3 inches tall and never needed cut, how many years would you fund them with zero results before you realized it was a sink hole for money?
Similarly, supposed clean coal technology has been funded for years without any results. Yet the only answer on the left is, more money. It is time we were a little bit more frugal with public funds, and only support programs that are actually producing real results.
