Hey guess what everyone
BARACK OBAMA WON 
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Nothing different from the dramatically rising costs of everything under BUSH and his corrupt adminstration.
And, do you think Obama would be that stupid to raise anything that would cripple the middle/lower class when his whole plan is to help them?
Where in any of my posts have I said I was for government handouts? Infact is you read what I typed above youāll see that I was bitching about them wanting to increase the unemployment benefits and increasing food stamps instead of giving the $$$ back to the people who actually paid the taxes. IF they were to give another stimulus they should give it to the people who actually PAID the taxes in the first place not some two bit crack head N****R on the corner!
Alot of folks get on welfare just for the healthcare.
Yes I do. Have you ever watched the TV show with Chris Angel? Basically itās all an illusion. He makes you pay attention to what heās doing with his left hand and you arenāt watchin what heās doin with his right hand. Electricity costs go up everyone will blame the electric companies not the government because most of the people who voted for him are too f****n dumb to even read the newspaper! He raises the corporate taxes and give you a larger tax rebate at the end of the year but what people donāt realize is that YOU are paying for the excess tax burden levied on the corporations through increased prices! The corporations arenāt going to lay down and take a tax hit they are going to lay people off and jack up prices! Youāre a friggin moron if you think increasing taxes on anyone in the current economy is the way to stimulate growth and create jobs!
The deadbeats need to get kicked the f**k off! That would be a cost cutting measure I can live with!
You took my comment out of contextā¦ I meant āasā a republican, as in republicans as a whole or as said rule, are not looking for government hand-outs. I guess I should have worded that better, sorryā¦ Tax rebates IMO, are hand-outs back to the people. Taxes are there for a reason, to help us as a nation, and not to be abused by the top 5% like it seems to be happening. Also, there are more fees to pay than just taxes. Rising costs of goods and services under the republican adminstration, and using the democrats will raise the taxes as a coverup for everything else that has raised through the past 8 years. Taxes is a bad word to everyone, but the republicans use that word as a coverup for everything else they have raised as far as living costs go.
just write everything off
Yes, Iāve watched Chris Angel a few times.
The electric companies are already corruptā¦ they need to be regulated. ANd, if they donāt want to provide the service for a fair price, then kick them the āfā out and get people in there that will provide the service at a slightly lower profitā¦
Ok, so you believe Bush has done one hell of a job then. Everything has gone the way of the ****ter under Bushā¦ and you say under Obama itās going to be worse?
SO, your saying the prices of goods and services will just continue to go up like they have been anyway under the BUSH adminstration? 
Maybe the corporations should work more efficiently, and actually save money that would offset the tax increases to corporations. I know there is a awful lot of wasted effort, and low-productivity in a lot of US corporation, that could easily be fixed.
I agree but they have already stated that they plan on doing another stimulus which will include an increase in food stamps and and increase in unemployment benefits. Iām against both of these. I guess Obama is gonna hook a brotha up afterall :doh:
Yeaā¦ I donāt believe in helping poor people, that are lazy, have kids that they canāt afford, and all that crapā¦ So, there should be some sort of strict review of the people that get assistance. They should not just give it to everyone, including scumbags. Iām not super hard left, you know.
No doubt about that. if people got paid for actual work, many would need $ assistance 
No not everything has been roses under bush but he was handed a cluster f**k from Clinton and then 9 months later 9/11 happened and ****ed everything even more. Could things have been handled better? Sure. Is everything Bushās fault? No. As someone has stated previously before Bush can sign anything the senate and the house has to pass it. Now that the Dems have the house, senate and the White House youāre going to see more regulation, more government programs, INCREASED government spending, etc. If you think we are gonna save $$$ if we stop the war over there youāre sorely mistaken!
this will result in more layoffs and higher unemployment rates like I previously stated! What world do you live in that higher unemployment rates are good for an economy?
would cost more to regulate than to just give it out.
Can you show me some facts that show Clinton handed Bush as Cluster F**k?
Well, maybe we should be laying off in-efficient workers.
Itās not like the un-employment rates are low under Bush.
Thats most likely trueā¦ but againā¦ the wasted money by our government through kickbacks, and abusing tax money could be used to regulate, or at least burden some of that cost.
hmmā¦ were would those trillions of dollars put towards the war be going then? Maybe we should use that money to help protect our own borders that we do such a poor job of. Also, if a terrorist group wants to commit a terrorist act, they would do it. Itās not like someone canāt get past border patrol, get into the country and execute multiple terrorist attacks from something as small as a suitcase.
Using that wasted money towards our borders would also prevent illegal aliens, and stolen cars (since we are on Pittspeed) that they let pass through the borders all the time b/c of the lack of funds.
Maybe we should use that money towards the protection from natural disasters to our OWN country. Since we seem to lack the realization that they do happen, and we need to protect our land against them the best we can.
Would most likely be piddled away on any number of the useless government programs he wants to start. Thereās something like 64 pages of agencies he wants to create on his website (at least it was there a few months ago I havenāt checked in a while)
I graduated High school with Brian Mooreā¦
Bursting Bubbles: Why the Economy Will Go From Bad to Worse
By Dean Baker
May 9, 2003, In These Times
See article on original website
Where is the best place to go for good advice about the stock market and the economy? The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune? If it is late 1999 and the stock market is soaring to record highs, the correct answer is In These Times. In December 1999, when the economic and political establishment was singing the praises of the ānew economyā and promising an era of unparalleled prosperity, In These Times ran āAfter the Fall,ā a cover story by Dean Baker, which explained that a stock market crash was inevitable. Baker also warned of some of the consequences of the crashādownsized 401(k) retirement plans, a funding crisis for defined-benefit pension plans, shriveling endowments for universities and foundations, and a recession pushing the unemployment rate up past 6 percent.
During the ā90s boom, Baker was one of the few economists who clearly identified the stock market bubble. But no one in a position of power was willing to listen, even though the main thrust of the argument rested on basic arithmetic. Remarkably, the same āexpertsā who led the nation into the bubble are still dominating public debate on the economy.
So In These Times is willing to break with the conventional wisdom again. In the first of a special two-part series on the economy, Baker explains how related bubbles in the property and currency markets have yet to burst, and how that prospect could severely hamper our quality of life for years to come.
In 2000, President Clinton could legitimately boast of the ābest economy in 30 years.ā Unemployment was low, wages were rising at all income levels, and the poverty rate was headed downward at a rapid pace. But after President Bush took office in 2001, the economy fell into recession, shedding jobs and causing real wage growth to slow and eventually stop altogether.
A convenient story explains this sharp economic reversal. According to the script, Clinton eliminated the deficit through progressive tax increases and spending restraint. This deficit reduction lowered interest rates and spurred an investment boom, which was the basis for the extraordinary growth of the late ā90s. Then Bush came into office and quickly squandered the surplus with his tax cuts to the rich and military build-up. As a result, the deficit skyrocketed and the economy tanked.
Itās a good story, but the reality is quite different. The Clinton boom was built on three unsustainable bubbles. One of them, the stock bubble, has already burst. The other two bubblesāthe dollar bubble and the housing bubbleāare still with us. The dollar bubble is starting to deflate, and the housing bubble is perhaps just now reaching its peak. These bubbles created the basis for the 2001 recession and the economyās continuing period of stagnation.
The basic facts of the economyās rapid deterioration over the last two years are widely known. After creating an average of more than 3 million jobs a year from 1996 to 2000, the economy has lost more than 2 million jobs since March 2001. This reversal has been associated with a rise in the unemployment rate from an average of 4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent today. The increase among African-Americans has been even larger, rising from 7.6 percent in 2000 to 10.9 percent in April, and larger yet for African-American teens, with the unemployment rate rising from just over 24 percent in 2000 to peaks as high as 35 percent in March. While real wages were growing at close to a 2 percent annual pace in 2000, wage growth has recently fallen to zero for most workers.
The economyās reversal was associated with a plunge in the stock market. The S&P 500 fell from a peak of more than 1,500 in March 2000, to lows of less than 800 in the past year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq took an even sharper plunge, falling from a peak of more than 5,000 in March 2000 to under 1,200 last summer. Adding to this picture is the reversal in the budget situation. The surplus of $236 billion in 2000 has given way to a deficit that may reach $500 billion in 2003.
Of course, the stock market downturn should not be included among the economic failings of the last two and a half years. That downturn really was just a healthy return to reality. The long stretch of new peaks that the market hit in the ā90s should have been a warning of bad times ahead to anyone paying attention. Instead the boom was widely celebrated as evidence of a new era of unbounded prosperity. The failure by the Federal Reserve Board or the Clinton administration to take actions to stem the growth of the stock bubble laid the grounds for a train wreck; the only question up in the air was when it would hit.
While the day-to-day, or even month-to-month, movements of the market are erratic and unpredictable, there is an underlying relationship between the stock market and the economy. In principle, the stock market is putting a price on the future profits of corporate America. While no one can know the future with certainty, economists can plausibly forecast how high profits can go over a long horizonāsay 10 to 15 years.
When the market was hitting its peaks in 2000, the ratio of stock prices to corporate earnings exceeded 30-to-1, more than twice its historic average. No plausible explanation could ever have justified this sort of valuation. In order for the stock market peaks of 2000 to have made sense, it would have been necessary for profits to grow at close to twice their historic pace.
In short, any serious economic analyst should have been able to recognize the stock bubble of the late ā90s. The fact that those in positions of responsibility either failed to recognize the bubble or chose to ignore it was a mistake with enormous consequences.
The stock market bubble added more than $8 trillion of paper wealth to the economy. This stimulated the economy in two ways. First, when families see the value of their stock portfolios rise, they spend more, since they feel less need to put money aside for retirement or their kidsā education. Just as the textbooks would predict, consumption boomed and savings fell through the floor in the late ā90s and 2000.
The stock bubble also stimulated the economy through its effect on investment. Contrary to myth, firms rarely finance new investment by issuing shares of stock. However, the ā90s boom was an exception to this rule. With Internet start-ups able to raise billions of dollars by selling shares on the Nasdaq, companies were using stock to finance new investment in a big way. Soaring stock prices fed directly into an investment boom concentrated in telecommunications and other high-tech sectors. Investment in equipment and software rose by more than $300 billion between 1996 and 2000, an increase of more than 45 percent.
The bursting of the bubble threw this process into reverse. This was seen most clearly with investment, which in both 2001 and 2002 was down by more than $140 billion from its peak in 2000. As we now know, much of the tech investment of the boom years was wasted on wild schemes that will never prove profitable. The tech sectors continue to have vast amounts of overcapacity, which will depress investment in semiconductors, telecommunications, and related sectors for years to come.
Consumption has fallen back somewhat, but not as much as might have been expected, given the loss of more than $8 trillion in paper wealth in the stock market. Consumption has stayed strong in the post-crash world because of a second asset bubble. As was the case in Japan in the ā80s, the stock market bubble of the late ā90s was accompanied by a housing bubble. The rise in home prices since 1995 has outpaced the overall rate of inflation by more than 30 percentage points. This sort of run-up in home prices has no precedent in the post-war era. The surge in home prices has created more than $3 trillion in new housing wealth, as compared to a situation in which home prices had just kept pace with inflation.
Like stock wealth, housing wealth also spurs consumption. Families see the rising value of their homes as a source of wealth that they can draw upon to meet their needs. They have been drawing on this wealth with a vengeance in the past two years, as plunging interest rates have led to an unprecedented surge in mortgage borrowing. As a result, the ratio of mortgage debt to home equity is at near-record highs.
This situation is frightening for two reasons. First, as a short-run matter, if housing prices fall sharply in some of the areas where the effects of the bubble are largest (for example the Boston, New York, Washington, and San Francisco areas), new home buyers (and those who recently refinanced their mortgages and took money out) could find they have negative equity in their homes. If someone borrows $270,000 to buy a $300,000 home, and the price falls by one-third, this leaves them owing $70,000 more than the home is worth. When this happens, there is a huge incentive to just let the mortgage holder foreclose on the home. If this were to happen on a large scale, the survival of many banks and financial institutions would be at risk.
The current high levels of mortgage debt are a problem for another reason. The population is aging, and many families are getting near retirement. With the front end of the baby boomers approaching 60, many homeowners should be near to paying off their mortgage. The demographics indicate that mortgage debt should be lower than it has been in prior decades. But on the contrary, many baby boomers are likely to hit retirementāāafter having just lost much of the wealth in their 401(k)s due to the stock market crashāāand discover that their homes are worth much less than they had expected. These older baby boomers really need to be saving to ensure themselves a sufficient income in retirement, but the illusory wealth created by the housing bubble is preventing them from recognizing this fact.
While the housing bubble has its own logic, it is an outgrowth of the stock bubble. It began as a result of people using their newly created stock wealth to purchase better homes. This started home prices on an upward path, leading people to buy homes in anticipation of continually rising prices. The bubble will persist as long as people expect home prices to rise. When they lose this expectation, housing prices will fall back to more normal levels.
The ā90s stock bubble is also partially responsible for other recent problems. One is the switch from surpluses to deficits at both the federal and state levels. The federal government collected almost $120 billion in capital gains tax revenue at the peak of the stock bubble in 2000, most of which came from gains on stock sales. When stock prices plunged, capital gains revenue did also. It is now projected at $51 billion in 2003. Many states, especially California, were similarly affected by the stock crash.
The wave of corporate accounting scandals was also an outgrowth of the bubble. In an era in which corporations were routinely putting out profit projections that defied common sense, it was virtually inevitable that some executives would take the additional step to outright fraud. This was entirely predictable, since every prior speculative bubble has also been accompanied by large-scale financial fraud.
To make matters worse, a third bubble from the ā90s is also still with usāāthe dollar bubble. The Clinton administration deliberately pursued a āstrong dollarā policy. This had the desirable short-term effect of restraining inflation and raising domestic living standards by making imports cheaper for people in the United States. (An undesirable short-term effect was the devastation of U.S. manufacturing.) However, in the long-term, the strong dollar policy is unsustainable. As a result of its massive bill for imports, the United States is currently borrowing more than $550 billion a year from abroad (approximately 5.3 percent of GDP), since it is buying much more from abroad than it is selling. This borrowing is paid for by selling off U.S. assets. If the trade deficit remains at its current level, within a decade foreigners will own the entire stock market, much of the government debt and many of our homes.
At some point, the dollar will have to fall significantly to bring the deficit down to a sustainable level. When this happens, the resulting rise in import prices will contribute to a rise in the inflation rate and a deterioration in domestic living standards. If the Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates to prevent an increase in the inflation rate, then the impact of the falling dollar will be especially painful, as higher unemployment, which accompanies higher interest rates, will be an inevitable result.
The triple bubble economy of the late ā90s presents the most difficult set of economic problems since the Great Depression. The solutions are neither simple nor painless, butājust as was the case with the New Dealābig problems can open the door to big solutions.
okā¦ do you really believe he would create 64 pages of useless programs? Do you really believe he is that stupid.
Can you provide facts that he wants to create 64 pages of useless programs? Or, do those programs not affect or help you, and therefore they are useless?
Also hereās an article Published in the New York Times back in 1999ā¦
Published: September 30, 1999
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets ā including the New York metropolitan region ā will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nationās biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates ā anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.
āāFannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990ās by reducing down payment requirements,āā said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Maeās chairman and chief executive officer. āāYet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.āā
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980ās.
āāFrom the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,āā said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. āāIf they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.āā
Under Fannie Maeās pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 ā a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
Fannie Mae, the nationās biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990ās. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard Universityās Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.
In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Maeās and Freddie Macās portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.
Heās the most liberal Democrat in the Senateā¦Youāre damn straight I believe heās gonna create a **** load of useless programs! Heās gonna tax and spend like you wouldnāt believe!
the dems control the whitehouse, the senate and congress now, yeah thatās gonna be great, lets make a bunch of meanless laws that **** on the constitution