Ignorance is bliss

Arrogance is not.

Let me try to understand you, people that have a socialist agenda are to be believed and people with a capitalist agenda are to be ignored?

Most of the proof that supports global warming has been around for decades and has been proven. Wait! Take a breath and think this through. Global warming comes in two flavors science and stupidity.
Scientifically global warming has been proven 40 years ago when the stupid people were still warning us about the coming ice age. There is fact after fact that supports global warming and those that understand the science have no problem with those facts.

Then you have the stupid side. These socialists want to destroy economies and have stated that goal for decades. They glam onto any fact and twist it to reach that goal. This is why they switch from warming to cooling to warming in order to persuade people that success is bad and communism and or socialism is good. Why else would they want us to reduce carbon levels when it is the fourth largest greenhouse gas? Bypassing water vapor which is not caused by man and accounts for 80% of greenhouse gas, methane a gas excreted by almost every mammal on the planet, ethane another excretion, and stick with carbon dioxide the stuff every mammal and plant exhale. Before you tell me that plants inhale carbon and exhale oxygen, the carbon inhaled by plants is exhaled when photosynthesis stops at the end of the day. This is why you have smog in the mountains, and why live plants are removed from hospital rooms at night. Too many plants in an enclosed area like a hospital room will reduce the O2 level and hurt or kill the patient as they sleep. This was found out the hard way in the 60’s.

If you want to fight global warming then you need to understand that all global warming comes from the SUN not man. Without the Sun we would be a frozen ball of ice. Look at the moon Titan, the primary gas is methane and it keeps the moon at the very warm temperature of minus 175 degrees instead of the minus two hundred decrees of the moons also in orbit around Saturn. It all has to do with the amount of heat received by the sun. Mars as another example has a winter temp of minus 87 degrees C and in summer time goes all the way up to minus 5 degrees C. The atmosphere on Mars is carbon dioxide. Back in the 70’s Mars had a mean temp of minus 75 degrees C and now the mean temp is minus 46 degrees. Global warming stop burning fossil fuels on Mars! Wait we don’t burn any on Mars. Why the dramatic rise in temp? Yes, the Sun is getting hotter, yes, that heat is affecting the global temperatures on all the planets. Can we do anything about it? Sure, all we need to do is add more fuel to the sun which will increase the magnetic field reducing the heat it puts out through expansion. All we would need is a ball of metallic hydrogen the size of Jupiter, insert it into the center of the Sun without it going critical before then and we can bring down earths global temp by ten degrees for about a million years.

Politics is taking a side to advance your agenda. If your agenda is to save the earth then you are wasting your time. The Earth is doomed and has been doomed since the Sun first started to fuse hydrogen, its fuel is finite and has been measured. As the Sun fuses hydrogen it weakens its magnetic field and expands. This means that the sun will expand to reach between the orbits of Venus and the Earth. Its output will cause the Earths orbit to decay and the planet will fall into the Sun. now there are opposing views on this and to be fair I will include them. The sunny optimistic view by scientists is that the Sun will only expand to the orbit of Venus leaving Earth just a burned out cinder but still circling the Sun with a surface temperature of between 850 and 1100 degrees. And all that petroleum will be burned up as it explodes from the depths of the ground. The oceans will evaporate over time, all the green things will be long dead, most likely in the next 140 thousand years so what have we saved?

So tell me again how what we do on this planet is going to make a difference. How do we save the planet from global warming?

Sure we can reduce the greenhouse gases and add a decade to the lifespan of the atmosphere half a billion years from now. If we stopped all production of any and all greenhouse gasses as you read this the planet is still doomed. If we all die or leave this planet this very minute the planet is still doomed.

I believe in business and capitalism. But I also know when the system is broken.

Know? Or think. Fact versus opinion.

You say you know the system is broken, fine, lay it out for me. Show me how the system is broken. I believe the system is broken but I want to hear you beliefs and opinions and most of all facts.

Ill let you do the research...Google is your friend,Here's a starter list

Arthur Anderson
Enron
Bear Sterns
Jack Ambramoff
Duke Cunnigham
Tom Delay
Jerry Lewis
Bill Lowery
William Jefferson
Angelo Mozilo
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/view/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/regulation/view/
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/407/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2008/05/303-index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2008/04/302-index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2008/02/301-index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2007/10/quid-pro-quo.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2007/02/friends-in-high-places.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2006/10/nice-work-if-you-can-get-it.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2006/09/crisis-mismanagement.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2006/11/science-fiction.html

PBS? Nothing better?

But dont you think that the fact these abuses are known (and for the most part have been or are being prosecuted) indicates that the system is working? Man is not perfect, and no creation of man will be either. That is why we have checks and balances, and laws and punishment. Indeed, I guess I see the glass half full. Your proof that the system is broken is my proof that the system is working.

The PBS stuff in particular expose stuff is from various news sources around the country. So simply casting doubt by saying its PSB is hogwash. That kind of attitude and stupidity is exactly what allows certain politicians to continue to lie to the public.

Prosecuting after the fact does not show the system is working. The loopholes or laws that allowed some of this corruption or manipulation have not been changed. Some of the current stuff, for ie. the sub prime crisis was seen in advance and nothing was done as it was starting. The Fed and market regulatory bodies warned and are still warning about the same loopholes and changes are still currently being blocked by certain people in congress. Watch CSPAN, this kind of stuff is currently being addressed. I've seen bankers, the Fed, market regulators, and people within the related industries go in front of congress and point out what some of the problems are yet a lot of the necessary changes are still being blocked by certain legislators. It's rediculous to say the least.

You will note that I cast no doubt, just asked PBS? As in these are widely reported and other sources available. PBS - for whatever good it is for - is not an in depth news agency. Period.



Wrong - You cant prosecute for loopholes - that is why they are called loopholes. You can only prosecute for violations of the law. Which has happened. Which means it worked. Man is not a bunch of saints. And as many Mother Theresas you have, you will get as many Ken Lays. that is why we have laws. And that is why it is working. Man cannot build a system (other than a totally totalitarian one and even then the abuses of the elite will not be stopped) that will not be abused. Remember the cliche about being "foolproof"? The problem is fools are ingenious.

I didn't say you could. Certain loopholes need to be eliminated because of their potential for hiding fraud,etc. There are many such loopholes that have been identified that are not being addressed or are having legislation that addresses them slowed by various politicians. Just as transparency is essential to help reduce fraud in government it is also necessary to help reduce fraud out of the business and financial communities.

THis is all well and good but it seems reading comprehension is still new to you.



Name them and the lies they told.



REally!!!??? Please tell me how you plan to stop people from breaking the law before they break the law? Are you suggesting we tap peoples phones and listen in just in case they are planning to break the law?



Okay here you go off the path of truth and light into the world of ignorance. As I stated before I own a real estate business. we all saw it coming and there was nothing that can be done to stop it. The reason you can’t stop it is because people will still find ways around the laws. For instance in my state it is illegal to sell a house to someone who can’t afford it. The only people who got hurt in the subprime market were the speculators that caused the bubble in the first place, and the people that did not do what they were told to do in order to get the loan.

No one cares about the speculators because they were not buying the houses to live in but to flip for profit. That makes it a business and businesses rise and fall all the time.

The other people were the dumb ones. They were given a loan for a house. They were told that they needed to pay down and get rid of their credit cards and to do this they got a loan for 125% of the value of the house. They were supposed to use that money to pay off and stop using their credit cards as well as their car loans. This is spelled out in big letters to ensure they understood that this was a condition of the loan. The get the loan and pay off their cards and their car. Then they take a vacation to where ever and used their credit cards to pay for it. They buy two new cars to go with their new home and all is well until the teaser rate ends two to five years later. Now they have to pay more because that was in the loan agreement and they can’t meet those payments so they lose the house. How is that the fault of government? How is that the fault of the lenders? The fault lies with the purchaser for not doing what they were told were requirements for the loan. As it stands only 4% of the loans are in default. That means that 96% of the loans are being paid on time. That is not a serious problem unless you want to eliminate the pain and suffering for all who are too stupid to do what they were told to keep the house.



These are not loopholes! They are specific plans set up to help people get a home if they want one but they have to follow the rules.

Country Wide Mortgage Company went after every poor person they could because the economy was going like gang busters and it would look real good if they were seen helping the poor own their first home. Again I stress that it is illegal to sell a home to someone that can’t afford it. Which means that each person has to prove they can make the mortgage payments without putting undue stress on their finances before the loan can go through. If the mortgage companies failed to do this due diligence they have to eat the loan. Oops! I don’t hear of them eating the loans but they are foreclosing on homes of people that don’t pay the mortgage.



Ok, pay attention here. Those people that want new legislation want the government to pick up the tab when they screw up and loan people money they should not have loaned money to. In short they want to make money and have no risk of any loss.

Now to be fair I will say that some mortgage brokers lied to get the mortgages through. Those people need to be found and arrested.

That is incorrect. Many people will be affected by the subprime crisis. There has been and will be further loss by many individual and corporate investors as well as losses in retirement accounts because of the way the financial markets wrapped poor quality loans into mortgage backed securities and CDO's. It already accounts for over 400 billion in losses a number which continues to grow as things unfold. It has cause a lack of confidence in financial markets so we have seen and keep seeing more and more money coming out of financial markets. Normally when money comes out of stocks it goes into bonds, however since MBS's and CDO's are bonds the money has gone into commodities. Money market accounts aren't even safe right now because some of them use MBS's and CDO's. The rush into commodities is why gas and food prices have risen so sharply. This will aggrevate global markets even more since global crude prices are set according to US crude prices and the US is the breadbasket of the world. So maybe now you see how this is truly affecting not just U.S speculators. It is global in scope also because the CDO's and MBS's were sold to foreign investors. The trade deficit makes us rely on foreign investment. So now you might understand the snowball effect.We are still at the beginning of what will be a very long recession or worse. Should I mention that the floods in the Midwest right now are ruining crops?

That is not what I said so it is not incorrect.



This is the reason you don’t put all your money into one basket. Diversification spreads the risk and minimizes the loss. Those that fail to learn that simple lesson pay the price. This is business, and all businesses have risk to them. The greater the risk the higher the profit, unless you are an idiot in which case you don’t deserve your money and the proof of that is the loss of that money. If you bet the house on double zero the odds of making it are poor but if you do it at the right time you win big. Ignorant investors are stupid gamblers. They are more interested in the payoff rather than the risk so they bet poorly. An example of that would be two weeks ago my girl friends and I went to a casino and we watched a man gamble. His strategy was sound and he was winning, not big but winning. Another man at the table was winning big with a different strategy and the first guy wanted to win like him so he changed his strategy. Thirty minutes later he dumped four grand and was broke. He did not understand what he was doing and lost all his money. The same is true with the stock market. If you don’t know what you are doing you will lose. Those that understood the market did not get involved in the mess so they did not get hurt. Those that were looking for the big payoff got burned. It happens all the time why is this time any different?



If you believe this then you are ignorant. 400 billion in losses in a multi-trillion market is not a large loss.



Not true the rise in gas prices are caused by a group of people that are allowed to speculate outside our borders. This was caused by President Clinton when he did away with the law prohibiting this action. He destroyed the safeguards in the system and now 12 years later we see the reason why that safeguard was put in place. Funny how you say the market has lost 400 billion dollars while the futures speculators have picked up just about that much money. Every time politicians screw with the market they do so to help their friends. When that happens we have these problems but the effects are not seen or felt for about a decade. President Johnson created the crisis in real estate that slammed the nation in the 70’s, President Carter screwed with the market and we ended up with the dot com bubble. President Clinton screwed with the market and we have the gas crisis. President Nixon did not or could not stop it. President Reagan was too busy trying to fix the economy to notice the markets because if left alone they will fix themselves. The Current President Bush likewise was distracted by terror since he did try to fix the system until the attacks of 9/11. Democrats have a nasty habit of screwing up the economy not because they are stupid, but because they are ignorant of how business works and they are only looking for political gain rather than actually fixing the problem. Every time they try to fix the system it gets worse because to fix one problem they break the rules of another part of the system causing another crisis down the road.



Sorry I disagree with you. We had this problem in the 70’s and we had this problem in the 80’s and the 90’s and now. Each time it got “fixed” and we still have the problem. Let the markets settle it and it will go away. Had President Clinton not done away with the laws preventing speculators from doing what they are doing now the price would still go up but not as sharply. The safety net is gone and the only way to put it back on the mend is to drill domestically for oil or we will never get out of this mess.

Please do! Let’s see, we want to not drill for oil so we can use bio-fuels so the price of food and fuel go up. Then we have floods. This is a surprise that happens every year. I watch the news all winter long and read about record snow falls, (during global warming) then when spring comes we have the thaw and surprise! Flooding. How no one could have predicted the floods that happen every year for the past few decades that I have been monitoring this surprisingly annual event is beyond me. News Flash!!!! Snow melts when it gets warm. News Flash!!!!!! Developing nations cut into the supply of goods and services previously not tapped causing a rise in prices for those goods because there is less to go around. Drill for more oil and there is more to go around the price falls. As long as the supply remains the same it does not matter if you conserve or not the price will continue to rise because the rest of the world is not going to conserve so what we don’t use will just be grabbed up by the developing nations and the price will rise if not remain constant. Econ-101 this concept seems new to people in the news media and environmentalist who want us to cripple our nation to save a planet that one third of the planets population is not going along with the program. China and India represent one third of our population and they said they will not stop polluting, or building, or growing. With that going on conservation means nothing on a global scale.

That is not market loss, that was declared losses on corporate statements from foreclosures which is growing rapidly every day.That's just the tip of the hat. RE prices are still sinking further and the foreclosure rate is still growing. Not to mention an extremely large percentage of US wealth is tied to real estate values. Many small businesses are created using home equity so when real estate values drop so does a large portion of potential economic growth.



You are incorrect. It's mostly from hedge and some index funds. As the subprime crisis surfaced investments flowed out of stocks and bonds and into commodities. Commodities usually trend opposite to the stock market, this has been the case for a very long time. However this cycle has obviously been MUCH sharpen than usual. The Enron Loophole is possibly making the bubble bigger but the main inflow of commodities investment is due to the decline in the stock and bond markets. In any case Phil Gramm was the legislator directly tied to the Enron Loophole.



Maybe you should actually take a look at what the rest of the world is doing instead of listening to a partisan spin machine. We are the big pigs in energy consumption per capita.



The oil companies drill new wells all the time....Then they cap them and sit on them. They are already sitting on the leases to about 80% of our reserves. Fixing the supply/demand problem means fixing demand because supply will drop at some point in time no matter what we do. It took a long time to go from fire to coal then coal to oil. Don't expect to be able to ween off oil overnight.



Once again you should look past the partisan spin machine. Maybe you should call conservation efficiency because that is really what its all about. Conservation means everything on a global scale. The countries that are most efficient and less dependent on oil will do best as oil prices rise in the future.

This is true. And it is not going to be some government mandate that pushes us to conserve and be more efficient in our use, but the high price. In the end, this upheaval may be a good thing. One of the beefs about China and India is their extremely low cost of production. We cannot compete because no one here is going to work for $1.25/day. But that is just one cost of production. The high price of fuel is going to get many entrepreneurs to look for more efficient and cheaper ways to produce the same things. It will probably not be in China or India that these innovations come from because even with the expensive oil, they are still cheaper and can pass on their costs to the consumer.

It will be where the cost of labor is high, and therefor the cost of fuel is one factor that can be cut. ONce that happens (whether in Europe, Japan, or the US), they will adopt it quickly, and the balance will shift (not permanently - the only constant in life is change). But enough. This will make us cleaner, and cheaper in many areas for at least a time to come. And without the government mucking things up.

High gas prices are the nasty tasting medicine. Necessary to instigate the change that will come. And in the end, better for us. And it happened not because anyone thought we should conserve, but from a combination of greed on the part of OPEC, and the law of Supply and Demand.

One other note. Wells are capped when the price to pump the stuff is not economically feasible. Not to drive up the price. There are too many producers, and the allegations of price gouging and collusion have been investigated out the wazoo by the clowns in DC - without ever finding any basis for prosecution.

Are you suggesting that corporations that lose money is a problem? My company lost money should the government bail me out? I don’t understand what your point is here. Part of the risk in real estate is default on the loans. They knew this and made the loans. Will this hurt the company? Yes, which is why they have risk management.



So of the small percentage of subprime loans is going to sink the companies that made the loans? Last count still shows 4% are subprime loans if the company is so fragile that losing all four percent will sink it then someone did not do the math.



Since the prices are artificially high do to speculation and poor business practices the market has to correct itself. This is normal, it has happened before in Dallas, New York, and Miami in the 70’s. My uncles 40K house he bought in the 60’s in New York is now worth half a million dollars. If he sells it and buys a house in a cheaper area of the country he thinks he is getting a bargain if he gets a bigger house for less money. That is how the bubble started because people from New York and other places went to buy huge houses in cheaper states and did not bargain. The prices went up faster than they should have until people stopped buying houses at those inflated prices. Then the bubble burst. People that took out 125 loans were the ones that got hurt if they did not pay down the debt as they should have. Safeguards are in place and the only people being hurt by this are people that put more stock into the artificial value of the home than was justified. I will repeat, the prices were artificially high do to speculation and poor business practices. In the long term it is nothing more than a blip.



Why don’t you tell me what the rest of the world is doing? Is China or India conserving and not telling anyone about it? Europe is not conserving all that much and their fuel is around 16 dollars a gallon. Most of Europe economy is in the toilet, with record unemployment, high energy costs, and loss of industry. That does not sound like conservation by design it looks more like bad management. Their goals of reducing carbon levels has failed but they continue to set new goals instead of achieving the ones previously set.



This is a result of the windfall profits tax from the 70’s works great don’t you think? It makes it cheaper to import oil than pull it out of the ground. Getting rid of that tax will allow companies to uncap and sell.



Where?



Good, than at that point the demand side will drop and the problem is solved.



Only a fool would expect that. Since we have a 200 year supply and no replacement in sight why not use what we have until we can find a replacement?



I have no idea what you are talking about here, enlighten me.



I have no idea what you are talking about here, enlighten me.



I have no idea what you are talking about here, enlighten me.



Who are they? How are they doing it better than we are?

Only in concept now, unless you consider the third world. But the statement in itself is correct, even if there is no where to find it in practice.

I did not suggest corp loss as the problem or a govt bailout as the solution. The problem was predatory lending and the federal gov'ts lack of oversight. When certain local govts. tried to enact laws to curb the predatory lending the fed. govt stepped in and stopped them. This was one of the main causes.



Whats happening this time is not normal. Subprime lending increased significantly since 2000. There are still a bunch of subprime loans which will reset next year and in 2010 which will cause a lot more foreclosures than we've already seen.



You're the fool who looks at reserve numbers and oil company commercials without thinking about what else matters. What matters is how fast and cheaply it comes out of the ground. Cheap oil is from sources which are naturally pushed up to the surface and these types of sources are becoming rarer every day. A land well for example starts at about 5000 bbls/day and over time reduces to abt 5 bbls/day. They also produce higher lvls of water in the crude as time goes on. Usually only 20-40% of a field can be recovered this way. A lot of current technology involves gas injection to increase yields but this is a lot less efficient, a lot more costly, causes a lot more pollution, and only adds 10-20% to field recovery. So keep quoting the oil company commercial slogans because they are really only looking after their own interests not yours.


Simply enlighten yourself. Some of them took steps starting in the 70's to become energy independent. Some of them have models we can't follow because we have different sources available to us, but one thing i can say is oil is not the answer. Once Iraq oil production gets up to snuff U.S. oil cos will buy from there and sit on U.S. leases because offshore oil is more expensive to recover, so we will end up sending more of our wealth to Iraq as well as Saudi Arabia, China and India.



It is not the result of that WPT's. It is the result of foreign oil sources being cheaper to recover than from drilling offshore. A lot cheaper! You really do need to get away from the spin because both sides are lying to you.

There's a lot of countries that have higher gas prices than we do that have higher economic growth numbers than we do. They drive smaller more efficient cars and have structured their energy sources around what is available to themselves. The US economy is about to tank because too many politicians are pandering to special interests and care more about their reelections than what is happening to the country.

Name one - with a long term higher growth. (over a 10 year stretch). for the most part, what you will find is Non-European, small country where mass transit is a going concern due to high population density. And a growth rate similar or smaller than ours (unless you count the up and coming countries that are just joining the first world - like Korea was 30 years ago). 10% of nothing is easier to achieve than 5% of something.

Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Poland, Singapore, Taiwan.

Many of the countries having slightly less growth than us have more manageable debt levels so they will be able to ride out the current global slowdown better than we will.

In any case what troubles me are the trade deficit, govt deficit, and national debt. The Fed has their hands tied because of the credit problems the subprime market is causing so they hesitate to raise interest rates even tho inflation is about to spiral out of control. The last decade of government stupidity is about to deal a serious blow to the economy.

Oversight of what? There are federal regulations for all that was done and no laws were broken. Inventing crimes after the fact in order to make new laws is not a solution to the problem.



It happened twice in my lifetime in New York. It also happened in Dallas, and Miami, and San Diego. It is happening again because it is part of the real estate cycle. I remember when I got my license the hours of classes we had to take one of them covered the cycle and explained it. Back then it was called a balloon loan. The loan would be low for several years with a balloon payment of say fifteen thousand dollars somewhere in the middle of the mortgage. This would give people a decade to save the money to make the balloon payment. People lost homes all over the country because they failed to save the money. It was a great plan for poor people to own a home if they followed the plan they agreed to.

The subprime loan was the same thing with a different name and slightly different payment plan. Instead of coming up with 15 grand they would just raise the interest rate. You got a loan below the prime market rate for three to five years then your interest rate and payments would go up until you were paying the current interest rate. You still had to prove you could make the current payments, and showed you had the potential to make the future payments as the interest rate went up. The flipper had no intention of holding onto the home long enough to make the high interest rates. But the people were buying homes at any cost because the demand was there. The people from big cities like New York were coming down to poorer states and buying the houses some of them from flippers that were making a huge profit. They went out and bought more homes and the prices went up and they made more money. All was great with the world until the prices exceed the price people were willing to pay. So the flippers who now own 50 or 60 homes all with huge mortgages and rising interest rates. Appraisers base the price of a home on homes previously sold. So when one sells for a huge amount everyone in the neighborhood wins. When people stop buying homes at high rates the sellers lower their prices and everyone in the neighborhood starts to lose value. You may have heard of this concept it is called supply and demand. Too many houses means more supply than there is demand for them. Prices drop until they reach a price people will buy.

Now the fun part starts. You bought a home with a subprime loan with 125% of the homes value based on the belief that the home will increase in value quickly while the owner is paying down the loan. Once the demand stops the value stops going up and starts to drop until it stabilizes this is all part of that cycle. So yes the subprime mess has never happened before, because the last time it was tried it was called a balloon mortgage. And unlike last time where we blamed the owner for not paying his mortgage this time we are blaming the lender for the owner not paying his mortgage.



Only if the owner fails to pay his mortgage.



So you are not going to answer the question.



You have any proof of this or is this just your belief?



So let me get this right. The WPT makes domestic oil too expensive to pull out of the ground and makes it cheaper to buy foreign oil. But the tax has nothing to do with the fact that I is more expensive to get domestic oil. Sorry I don’t follow. Please explain that one to me.



Please name them. When I was in the UK it was 16 dollars a gallon, a bit higher in France, a little lower in Germany. The UK has the best economy of the three and they are behind us. Oops was I not supposed to have traveled the world and paid these prices? Does my international driving license not count? I have not driven in Korea or Japan for over 20 years so I won’t count them. Just for the record the largest supplier of oil to the US is Canada followed by Mexico, and then Venezuela, Saudi oil is below them so why do you keep bringing up the Saudi’s?



So having lived in these countries and paid their prices constitutes spin? Or is it your belief that you know what is true and no one else has a valid understanding of the world?

My mistake you did answer the question. Israel has inflation that will break your heart and survives by our buying of goods from them. Ireland, also survives from our companies putting up plants in that wonderful country and buying the goods they make. Hong Kong is not a nation it is a city in China. You may remember that the UK gave it back in 1999. Korea when I lived there for two years was nice and growing I can believe that but don’t forget the huge boost of funds provided by the US. Taiwan gets huge support from US. Singapore I don’t know because I have not lived there.



I hope you are not talking about the global slowdown that started in 1972 that has hit every nation in the world? The one where we came out of it in the 80’s went back into it in the 90’s and just pulled ourselves out of it again? That global slow down? The global slow down that has decimated Japan for the last 20 years? The one where only nations that did business with the US prospered and those that did not were hurt badly? That global slow down? The global slow down that economist call a world wide depression? That global slow down? Funny how the ones you name are all heavily dependant on selling goods to the US for their economy and if that is true then their great economies are dependant upon our economy supporting them. Logic would suggest that they are not in better shape than we are.



I fail to see how when Mr. Bush took office and provided tax relief that the interest rates dropped from around 10% to 4% and have gone all the way up to the nose bleed section of 7% in comparison to when Mr. Carter was president and we had interest rates at 19%. Let me see… Nope not spiraling out of control so far. That is 3% below what he started with almost 8 years ago. While Mr. Carter went from 8% to 19 percent in just four years he was able to accomplish this by raising taxes. The last time the interest rate was at 6% Kennedy was President. So our economy is must be doing well because other nations can’t make the claim that they have been able to drop interest rates that low because they refuse to lower taxes. Had President Clinton not raised taxes we would have even lower interest rates.



That depends on who wins the Congress in the next election.

Again, wrong. Check out the growth over the last 10 (or 20 years). you will see that with the exception of Korea and Taiwan (both of which were coming up from nothing and therefore invalid) none had a greater rate of growth. for a year? Sure. Not over the long term. Plesae read the entire challenge before jumping guns. Even the worst nation can have a short term rate of growth that is the envy of the world. Long term is what feeds the family however.