Theodore's World

This is suppose to be a representative republic. The hell it is. The democrats and most of the republicans are respresenting, people who most of the time don't work, don't pay their bills and Illegals who don't even belong here.

You can bet after the first of the year, Amnesty will rear its ugly head once again. The democrats will once again buy 40 million more votes to keep themselves in power. Because they know we will still be working and paying for the: Healthcare, Housing, Welfare, and a free college education for every F**king Illegal alien in this now God forsaken country. And they know there aint thing one we can do about it.

Some how VDH and have the same thought!!!

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September 29, 2008
Dr. Frankenstein’s Wall Street
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services

When the mortgage bubble burst, Americans were "shocked" at how many Wall Street buccaneers had been gambling in a vast pyramid scheme with someone else's money. Paper fortunes were made buying and selling questionable sub-prime mortgages on the silly assumption that such gargantuan inside profiting would always expand — even as the number of homebuyers able to buy overpriced properties was shrinking.

Now after the recent crash in sub-prime mortgages and the stock of several investment firms, a trillion dollars in "assets" could be nearly worthless. An already indebted American government must restore some sort of trust to banks and markets by either printing money or borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign creditors to guarantee loans.

All that remains of this Ponzi scheme is the election-year blame game. Republicans charge that important financial firewalls were dismantled by the Clinton administration while insider liberal senators got shady campaign donations in exchange for aiding Wall Street. Democrats counter that the laissez-faire capitalism espoused by Republicans for two decades encouraged financial piracy while tax policy favored the rich speculator over the middle-class wage earner.

But no one dares to ask what really drove the wheeler-dealer portfolio managers. Who re-elected these shady politicians of both parties? Who fostered the cash-in culture in which both Wall Street profit mongering and Washington lobbying are nourished and thrive? We citizens did — red-state conservatives and blue-state liberals, Republicans and Democrats, alike. We may be victims of Wall Street greed — but not quite innocent victims.

Let me explain. The profiteering was not just the result of a few thousand scoundrels on Wall Street or in Washington, as greedy and as bonus-hungry as many of them no doubt were. Look at the housing market as a sort of musical chairs in which everyone profited as long he grabbed a seat when the music stopped. Then those left standing — with high-priced loans and negative equity when the crash came — defaulted and stuck taxpayers with debt in the billions of dollars. But until then, most owners who had sold homes cashed out beyond their wildest dreams.

Thousands of dollars in past profits are still in sellers' bank accounts or were spent on their own consumption. If the shaky buyer at the bottom of the pyramid should not have borrowed to buy an overpriced house, then the luckier seller higher up hardly worried that the cash-strapped fool was paying him way too much with unsecured borrowed money.

We created the cultural climate for this shared madness. Television shows advised how to "flip" a house after putting in cosmetic improvements. Real-estate seminars and popular videos convinced us that homes were not places to live in and raise a family but rather no different from piles of chips on a Vegas table.

We created the phony populist creed that everyone deserved to own a house. So lawmakers got the message to relax lending standards in service to "fairness." But Americans forgot that historically nearly four in 10 of us aren't ever ready, or able, to sacrifice for a down payment, monthly mortgage bills, home maintenance and yearly taxes — and so should stick to renting.

The problem went way beyond real-estate fantasies. Five-percent interest as a return on our money was once considered pretty good — especially inasmuch as a factory or farm on the other side of the banking equation could not really stay in business paying 10 percent in interest to banks for its necessary borrowing.

But soon retirement-account holders and institutional investors began to expect as a given 7, 10 — and even 20 — percent "return" on their portfolios. Wage earners and professionals alike compared the glossy brochures that appeared in the mail, and then jumped to this 401(k) investment or that mutual fund to "maximize" retirement portfolio earnings.

How Wall Street managers, eager for more multimillion-dollar bonuses, planned to deliver on their promised sky-high returns no one asked. But it often proved to be more by hook-and-crook shell games than by financing new productive businesses or by extending credit for the production of real goods in vital plants.

In a larger sense, this zeal for quick profits and easy money reflected an oblivious too-good-to-be-true culture in which we drove larger cars but demanded more oil drilling from everyone except ourselves. We expected both expanded government entitlements and lower taxes.

Our government borrowed ever more money from foreign creditors, because it was a collective reflection of our own profligate financial habits. Of course, we should reform Wall Street and Washington -- and punish severely the crooks in both places. But Americans should remember that Frankenstein was not the name of the monster but of its creator.

typo "I"

Will the Dems take Pelosi to the woodshed? Never seen such insanity on TV. Lock up Bush and Cheney under heavy guard so there is zero chance this broom-rider could ever be President. Halloween has come early this year.

Horace you've heard of the perfect storm ? well Pelosi is the perfect idiot. She has no clout, 90 democrats voted against this 'bag of dung' she can't even control her own kind. But alas, the dems are blaming the Republicans. The press is going along with it, par for the course. But they don't need the repubs to pass this bag of dung but they want someone to hang with them when the drop the trap door.

This is the time for all Republican candidates from McCain and Palin to all of those running for the House and Senate to hang Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Frank, Dodd, and their cadre of far-left wing Democrats and Socialists to dry for their role in creating this problem and obstructionism in doing what was necessary and obvious to prevent the crisis.

McCain and Palin should make the election a vote on whether the country wants to continue to have this Democrat run Congress with it's 9% approval rating being the ones to fix the problem that they created. "Real Reform" or "Change for the Worse"?

Mark exactly!!

It is amazing how many don't know what this is all about. But like Nicholas said a lot of people don't use a computer too and we get tons of truthful information online too. Even Fox is not great at giving tons of information like we can get online. I think that is one of the reasons I like to listen to Rush so much. He tell so much information and backs it up with sources which I love when I share it with others.

Tincan Sailor, good article, thank you.

And also I remember those filp houses ads on late night TV, I got sooo sick of them. Like snake oil salesmen is what they felt like. haha

Horace, LOL good one. "Halloween has come early this year.".....it sure has.

Just to imagine Pelosi, Barney Frank and Harry Reid at my door on Halloween night.

Mark, "Pelosi is the perfect idiot", she sure is.

I just heard on TV that she ticked off some of the Rep. that had not decided about their vote yet when Pelosi said in her speech yesterday that this Bailout was not the dems fault but republicans. hahaha stupid idiot. '
So they ( the fence sitter republicans) saw she was going to lie like that and got the strength to vote no on the bill.

Les, yes, you know this really shows if the independents would pay attention, how the dems corruptions end up blaming everyone but themselves.
I always remember how when Nixon did wrong Republicans wanted him punished, we just don't cop out like the dems do on things. I am sick of how the left does this time and time again.

Unfortunatly the American taxpayer will have to bailout Wallstreet in the short term. To do other wise will see your economy collapse and take everyone with it. This is no longer about saving the 'fat cats', it's about ordinary people being able to keep in their homes, their retirement funds intact, and their jobs. College loans would be affected as the credit crunch bites and young people could even find it nigh impossible to leave their parents. Nobody will be able to invest in property rentals. It didn't escape my notice that Wall Street lost over 1 trillion dollars overnight. That is far in excess of the rescue package. I find it extrodinary with the amount of bickering and pointscoring going on inside your political houses. Someone needs to tell them to take the thumbs out of their mouths and take ownwership of this hideious mess. Both sides of government are at fault for not keeping an eye on this people. They were allowed to run amok with the American peoples investments and got creative in cobbling together shoddy deals. Your meltdown is effecting the entire globe and as everybody knows all our economies are all interlinked with one another. The only saving grace for Australia is that we are in surplus and our financial institutions are closely regulated by independant regulatory bodies. Stil, it is going to have a HUGE impact on my husband & I as we are gearing up for retirement. My husband as serious skin problems and I figured that at 59 years, one more year would do. But at it stands we have seen thousands wiped off his retirement package.Anyway, if your government keeps dithering you can expect the economic elvator to go into freefall, destroying banks, companies (big & small)and see Aemrica slide into a deep deep recession....if not Depression. Millions will lose their homes, their jobs, their life savings and that future you had planned for your kids will evaporate overnight as credit dries up around the country. Well guys, it's really is your call....politics aside, most global anyalists agree. It will be goodnight America, it was nice knowing you while it lasted. And as a poisonous sidedish, the straw that could finally break America's back is your rampant uncontrolled alien immigration. Those guys are bleeding America to death.