Financial Shakeup this weekend

[ccm911]

Why we would borrow money from folks that hate us is beyond me.

Why can't Bush, Cheyney, Rumsfeld and Rice be brought up on criminal charges?  We can not let their indiscretions go unpunished........oh wait, isn't that why we voted in a Democratic Congress?

Miscreants, all of them!!!

[Phokaioglaukos]

Wellardmac wrote:

The Senate is still AWOL in getting their act together.

All the more reason you need to vote! The Democrats have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, but with Tim Johnson from SD still recovering and 2 of those 51 actually independents that vote with the Democrats, we're a loooong way from the Democrats having the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.

[nplenzick]

ccm911 wrote:

Why we would borrow money from folks that hate us is beyond me.

Why can't Bush, Cheyney, Rumsfeld and Rice be brought up on criminal charges?

Because my friend they still have a great deal of support from the American people.

Don't believe me? Take a trip to the newest, biggest red neck state of them all, no I'm not talking Alabama but the sunshine state of Florida. The land of the Pro Life Florida state license plate and the most narrow minded people I have ever met in my life. Most of the people I talked to think GW walks on water. They actual fear this election and think that the country will go to hell soon afterwards. Mention Hillary or heaven forbid Barack Obama, well life just might as well be over. One fellow made it quit clear and I'm sure many of you have heard this by now, a vote for Obama is a vote for VP. When I mentioned that Sen McCane would be the oldest elected president and since he has had a serious bout of skin cancer the same could hold true for him too. The reply; " At least he's a military man" . Even a member of my own family supports GW saying " history will look at him as favorably as it now looks on Lincoln" .........I still hope he was kidding and just trying ruffle my tail feathers. These same people still complain about Bill and his bj, but they complain very little about the the life's lost and the money spent in Iraq.

McCane's time has come and gone. He's a great American. The Republican party should have nominated him 8 years ago. I believe if that would have happen we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now and I would still be a Republican instead of a Democrat. Hillary; although a very intelligent person is a very polarizing individual. Some say when she raises her voice it's like your mother yelling at you. I tend to agree though she is light years ahead of the a-hole who is in there now. So we are left with Barack Obama, I think he's got enough experience to lead this country in the right direction. Not one of the three knows what there going to face when they get into office.....it's going to be hitting the ground running. He's speech's are something to behold. Words do still mean something. Is he a dreamer? Yep, but just think if some of those dreams come true, it would be a real kick in the ass wouldn't it? So Chris don't you and others throw your vote away this is just to important . I leave you with the quote of a great American who was hated by big business, noted for being a dreamer and for the words he spoke.

"It is true of the nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer" Theodore Roosevelt, 1911, Berkeley, Ca.

[catchacab]

Wellardmac wrote:

Phokaioglaukos wrote:

Wellardmac wrote:

I'm with you on this Aaron - the money we have spent on Iraq could have been better spent elsewhere... the problem is that if we were not in Iraq I can pretty much guarantee that that it would not have been spent on the things that you listed, so it was a lose-lose situation.

The money spent on Iraq was borrowed by the government, largely from those outside the US, thereby further weakening the dollar and creating debt for our progeny to repay. And we used to think the Republican party stood for fiscal restraint and a balanced budget!

Bingo! You hit the nail on the head. I saw a study a couple of years ago... I'll have to see if I can find it later today. The study basically looked back over the last 100 years at spending in Republican vs Democrat vs split control governments.

The finding was the Republican governments ALWAYS spent more than Democrat administrations who in turn spent more than split control governments. The message was that if you want a big spending government, then vote for the Republicans.

As I said in a previous post Republicans used to have a manifesto of small spending and government. I'm not sure that either has ever happened, but at least they pretended that was the goal. I'm not sure that they even pretend that's the case now.

At this point, it doesn't matter who you vote for, Republican or Democrat) spending will continue to grow. The difference between the two, is how the money is spent.

It would be nice to recover the money we spent in Iraq, by trade for very low cost crude oil for the U.S. Directly imported and refined, distributed, retailed at a very low price and consumed in the U.S. (haliburton should not be involved in any aspect of this)

[catchacab]

Wellardmac wrote:

I know that people's memories are failing, but I have to remind them that under Clinton we had balanced budgets (with a surplus each year), we were paying down the debt and were due to pay it off entirely by 2013 - the chances of that happening now are nil.

The first thing GW did when arriving in office was to do away with balanced budgets and fiscal control. He has never seen a spending bill that he didn't like - remember he only issued his first veto a year ago and it was not on a spending bill. One thing Hillary has pledged to do is return to balanced budgets, paying down the national debt and fiscal control. Gotta love that one all by itself.

When B. Clinton was president, we (public) were not aware of the global threats to our national security. Had 9/11 not occurred, we may not have increased military spending as much during GWB's tenure.

The question is how will Hillary accomplish her goals?

Although, I will acknowledge that Hillary is a smart woman, I just don't like her, but I am willing to be her intern if she is elected.

[Wellardmac]

Yes, we were aware of the threats to national security. Bush was warned about Bin Laden when he took office.

Syria offered to deliver Bin Laden to us and we didn't take him.

Clinton had the chance to bomb him out of existence and didn't take the opportunity.

The fact is that the Clinton and Bush administrations knew about the problems with Bin Laden (remember the USS Cole bombings?) and the issues were clearly documented in the 9/11 report.

The "Intelligence" in CIA is an oxymoron.

(BTW, the veto I mentioned above was for Stem Cell Research - can't spend money on science! )

[AMoore]

Admittedly, money needed to be spent on national security, but not on a waste of a war in Iraq.  I'm all for wringing the necks of Al Quada, and even the Taliban.  These are groups that practice Islamic extremism and hope to destroy our way of life in the name of Alah.  On the other hand, next to Turkey, it is my understanding that Iraq was the most secular nation in the middle east.  I certainly did not have agree with Sadaam's dictatorial policies, but I never thought he was a threat to us.  As to whether he was a threat to his own people, that is what revolutions are for.  In the name of liberty for all:

We have not invaded Cuba;

We did not protect the Tutsi's from the Hutus in Rwanda (way more murderous than Sadaam ever dreamed of);

We have not gotten involved in Dafur;

Our involvement in Somalia was extremely limited;

There are many more examples of existing oppressive dictatorships which we ignore and should ignore.

While it would have been wrong to invade Iraq for economic / oil reasons, at least in theory there would have been a benefit for the U.S.  Where is the benefit?  in the pockets of American Industry (Halliburton and others) with no trickle down effect.  In fact, our economy has suffered more!

 

[Darren]

I can't defend GW and I don't want to.

it is obvious that we now have a fairly permanent military base in Iraq.  I don't know how long it takes to roll into Iraq's neighbors, but it has to be easier than flying troops from the US.

We now have a massive force, half-way around the world, in a region that is by any accounts volatile.

Maybe I'm a skeptic; I just don't see us ever getting out of Iraq because of the oil and because of the strategic advantage of having such a force there.  We could probably launch and sustain 2 large scale military operations, one from the US and one from Iraq at the same time.

I don't think that was by mistake, and its one of the only semi-reasonable reasons I can see to go there in the first place.

It was wrong to go there in the first place -- GW lied about the cost and the premise (and knew it), and now we're stuck.  I was/against going in but now I think it's wrong to leave, for several reasons.

The interesting thing will be as time goes on to see what other military conflicts are started and what our involvement will be.  Those future unknown situations are going to be what characterizes GW in history, good or bad.

[AMoore]

Darren wrote:

I can't defend GW and I don't want to.

it is obvious that we now have a fairly permanent military base in Iraq. I don't know how long it takes to roll into Iraq's neighbors, but it has to be easier than flying troops from the US.

We now have a massive force, half-way around the world, in a region that is by any accounts volatile.

Maybe I'm a skeptic; I just don't see us ever getting out of Iraq because of the oil and because of the strategic advantage of having such a force there. We could probably launch and sustain 2 large scale military operations, one from the US and one from Iraq at the same time.

I don't think that was by mistake, and its one of the only semi-reasonable reasons I can see to go there in the first place.

It was wrong to go there in the first place -- GW lied about the cost and the premise (and knew it), and now we're stuck. I was/against going in but now I think it's wrong to leave, for several reasons.

The interesting thing will be as time goes on to see what other military conflicts are started and what our involvement will be. Those future unknown situations are going to be what characterizes GW in history, good or bad.

Not that I think it would ever be necessary to do so, but we could have always deployed troops from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanastan (now) and many other places in the Middle East. I don't think we did this for strategic reasons.

One U.S. trident submarine is more powerful than any nation in the world, except the U.S. This is a great threat / defense against hostile sovereign nations with governments. What we need is small groups of commando's and intelligence personnel to combat terrorism. We did not need this Iraq mess.

[Wellardmac]

Actually, we have and still do have a permanent base in Saudi Arabia. We have had it there since the last Gulf War. In recent years the Saudi government was under pressure to get US troops out of the country - it was an embarrassing situation for them that they didn't want to ask an ally to leave, but really couldn't tolerate us staying. It was "convenient" that we got to invade a neighbor and set up bases there.... incidentally, there are no publicly announced plans for permanent bases in Iraq, but I have seen several reports about very permanent bases being built.

Here's one example:
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm