Well, we will see tuesday who wins. Either way it is not my defeat. No matter who is president i will get by. i do not do the wasteful spending i used to. I take responsibility for my life. i will also be living life tomorrow and the next day no matter who wins. It is not the end of the world either way. in fact i have learned that most of the people who have been effected by this latest recession were people who were living on the bubble anyway. Those were people who spent more than they should and lived on credit. those were middle management people earning an overinflated salary for playing farmville. those were day traders who did nothing productive by gambling on a fixed system meant to put their money in the pockets of the rich. I may wish for a better life for hard working people, but i cannot say i am too bothered to see those people fall.
I am unschooled in the processes of the high end financial marketing. I do know that people take advantage of the rules that are set up by the government, just like in any other 'game.' I don't understand why you get mad at the people who 'exploit' the laws instituted by congress rather than placing the blame where it belongs - the congress that passed the laws.
If you are in a basketball game, is it considered 'bad' to shoot from beyond the tree-point circle and get an "extra" (undeserved?) point for making it compared to the guy standing under the basket who makes an uncontested layup?
Seems to me you are making the similar 'right' and 'wrong' judgements to money, where the participants are only maximizing their 'score' relative to the rules of the game they are playing.
Yes - I am pissed at the thought of hedge fund managers (whatever the hell that is) making millions (billions?) of dollars for just pushing buttons that transfer huge amounts of money from one account to another. Just as I would be pissed about playing a basketball game where the other team's players were a foot taller than our team and could run faster.
Life ain't fair.
Yes - there was a huge financial crisis when Obama took office, due in large part to the collapse of the housing market. That collapse was nowhere the fault of President Bush. The cause for that crisis lies SQUARELY with the DEMOCRAT party - starting with Carter, and exacerbated greatly by Clinton. When Bush came to office he RECOGNIZED the problem and tried SEVENTEEN times to get the regulations fixed that allowed the crisis to develop. Each time OBSTRUCTED by the DEMOCRAT party - your heroes Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were the standard bearers in this malfeasance.
If there is blame to be passed for the collapse of the housing market it lay on the cold hearts of the DEMOCRAT party.
As for the auto industry. Companies were losing money due to the exorbitant contracts by the auto workers unions - the very same unions that have historically funded every DEMOCRAT politician, because the DEMs always allow the unions to proceed in their thuggish thievery.
The cure for the auto industry was inevitable. They should have followed Romney's advice and proceeded into a structured bankruptcy earlier - a bankruptcy that would have followed normal rules and allowed the companies to restructure themselves in a more survivable way by renegotiating the ruinous union contracts which caused the problems in the first place. Instead, Romney was seriously attacked by lying ads that pronounced he had 'wanted to bankrupt Detroit.'
Well, what happened - Detroit went bankrupt. Obama's 'bailout' of the auto industry relied on what? - bankruptcy of course, just as Romney had suggested years earlier (and earlier the remedy would have been a lot less painful.) However there was a BIG difference in Obama's bankruptcy than what Romney's bankruptcy would have been. Obama created a 'favored' interest in the process, whereby everybody had to undergo pain - EXCEPT for the auto workers unions that caused the problem in the FIRST place.
Yet Obama's big deal is "saving the auto industry" - well, except for FORD who said 'no thanks' and are going great guns without government interference, whereas GM (now owned by the government and run by the unions) are still struggling.
I believe you are glossing over the pain that Obama's mismanagement has caused by concentrated on the 'greedy' upper class. Recessions like this hurt everybody - except for two classes of people
- first, those who don't have to do anything but cash the government check that comes in without fail regardless of the pain and suffering of the rest of the nation. These folks are in a BETTER position than they were prior to the recession - their guaranteed income makes them invulnerable to the pain of the recession and certainly does not motivate them to want to change anything - they LIKE 'recessions' that do nothing more than make all those 'workers' uncomfortable.
- second, those favored by the government. Union workers don't sweat recessions - that is as long as they keep funding the DEMs who legislate to allow them to continue their ruinous policies that cause the recessions. They are 'protected' the same way the govt-dependent are.
No - the people who are really negatively impacted by the recession are the normal working folks who have to face (and pay for) all the unfair practices that work to put them out of a job - and the small business shop owners who rely on a prosperous economy to earn their living.
What Obama has given us is millions of people who have just given up looking for work - there are not any jobs out there for them to get. This massive failure is now working in FAVOR of Obama's unemployment rate.
Mathematically, you can decrease the unemployment rate by increasing the number of people who get jobs (the number in the numerator) OR by decreasing the number of people who don't even try to get a job (the number in the denominator.) Obama's MARVELOUS trend in getting the unemployment rate down is NOT by increasing the number of people working, but by DECREASING the number of people who are even TRYING to get work.
And any increases in JOBs have come about by temporary workers - Those hardy souls who lost their 'real' jobs due to the OBAMA screw-up, but have too much PRIDE to join the mouth-breathers on welfare and have taken part time jobs to feed their families. THEY are the ones you should have the sympathy for - Someone who once proudly worked in his chosen profession, who is now reduced to sweeping up convenience stores after hours for minimum wage and part time.
There is pain out there - and I share your opinion that none of if should be wasted on the hedge-funders who are reduced to living off the millions of dollars they banked in the good times. But I do feel genuine sympathy for the untold millions of people who are trying to figure out how to make the next house payment and pay for the groceries.