FogBelter's Comments (6525)

“Not for "spurious purposes" but in order to ramrod through an agenda that no rational thinking person would accept. Fear was the grease for the gears. It was a pragmatic approach from Bush's perspective ... remember the blue tarp and duct tape that people in the middle of "Nowhere" America were compelled to buy because Al Qaeda was coming to get them? Or the color coded threat level monitor manipulated for effect in order to maintain the fear level? I do.

We had despicable. amoral, manipulative people running the country during the term of Bush43. They were capable of anything to achieve their goals ... that's why the majority of the "worst of the Worst" sequestered at Guantanamo were actually just Afghan peasants sold out by their neighbors for a few bucks. The End Justified the Means.

And why wasn't Bin Laden killed at the end of the Bush term? Maybe because the NeoCons believe their Goldstein still has value to them in the future. These people aren't difficult to read.”

“Apprehending the "Mastermind" behind the mass murder of thousands of Americans on September 11th, 2001 you regard as nothing more than a PR victory? So the lives of those murdered Americans have no value to you at all, in other words? They don't deserve Justice? That's what your spin amounts to.”

“The easiest way to ensure responsible use of the War making mechanism in the Federal Government is to mandate, through law or Constitutional Amendment, that any deployment of US Military personnel into either a War, Police Action or any use of force situation would result in immediate enactment of a mandatory "War Tax" increase across all segments of the economy to pay for it. If each member of Congress knew that engaging in War would result in a tax increase on their constituents they would far more hesitant to put their job on the line for any but the most credible reasons.

It would be an elegant approach to check and balance in this important area of governance.”

“If Bush would have captured Bin Laden it would have undermined his Administration's "Global War on Terror" paranoia narrative that greased the gears of so many of his extremist domestic and foreign policy initiatives. There was no way that Bush could capture Bin Laden and still get what he wanted to do, done. He needed his boogieman, his Emmanuel Goldstein and "The Brotherhood" of Al Qaeda.

"Winston: Does the Brotherhood exist?

O'Brien: That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind."

"1984" George Orwell”

“Another thing to think about is that the reason the Real Estate values were so astronomical in the first place is because Wall Street was using the inflated mortgages to prop up it's Ponzi Scheme. People walking away from the properties may actually be doing the morally correct thing if it further drives down property values so they are in line with wages in the regions where the properties are. I saw someone reference a $19k 5-bedroom, 2-bath house in Detroit. Well, maybe, the economics of Michigan being what they are in light of the collapse of the Auto Industry, that is an appropriate property value in the region. In a Bay Area city I saw a property drop from an asking price of $520k at the peak of the Real Estate market to $175k now. Some might say what a dramatic drop in property values. I think the truth is that the property wasn't worth $520k to begin with and that manipulation in the Real Estate Industry, in collusion with the Banks, is what created such absurd levels of value inflation in the first place.

Let the property values drop to a level where wages can support purchases and the Real Estate market will stabilize at rational levels. If people walking away from their bloated mortgages aids in that correction it is good.”

“I wonder where that $875 billion has been invested, and if Abu Dhabi retains American or British financial advisers? I'll give you this, on paper Abu Dhabi has a lot of wealth.”

“We'll have to agree to disagree then.”

“Exactly, and if you find an out, take it.”

“How many people are fighting against Universal Health care because they don't want to be forced to pay for someone else's malady? We don't care about our neighbor's health so why would we care about our neighbor's mortgage? It's a package deal.”

“If you are talking about the United States you are exactly right ... there is no Social Contract when it comes to commerce it is everyman for himself.”

“I remember at the start of the Mortgage Crisis hearing a British financial analyst incredulously say:

"You mean the Mortgage holder can just walk away?"

It really makes you wonder how the paperwork for a Mortgage can be so packed full of tricky clauses but the one clause the Banks really needed to prevent people from just walking away from an underwater mortgage was left out. I guess the Real Estate Industry, Mortgage Brokers, and Banks were so convinced that the embarrassment of Bankruptcy, Foreclosure, and the threat of ruined credit would be enough to keep Americans cowering in their Mortgage Nightmares ... well, they guessed wrong.

The Professor is absolutely correct. Why keep paying on a Mortgage for $520k when the property is only worth $175k now. If the owner loves the property and is willing to continue paying despite being underwater that's one thing, but nobody should feel a prisoner to their Mortgage, they have an out.”

“Exactly, and where do you think that oil revenue is invested?”

“Maybe Abu Dhabi won't bail out Dubai because it can't bail out Dubai, because its financial situation is just as dire. I don't think it was the case of Abu Dhabi saying to Dubai "You were naughty with your spending so I am cutting up your credit card!"

Peel the onion a bit.”

“I think Iceland was the proverbial "Canary in the Coal Mine". and once it flopped dead to the floor of its economic cage the rest of the world should have paused to pump the toxins out of the Global Economic shaft before we sent more Miners into it ... but we didn't.”

“They are all heroes ... congratulations to them all.”

“Drip ... drip ... drip ... drip ...”

“The derivatives cloud is worth north of $613 trillion dollars ... all the bailout money combined isn't going to do much to address that.”

“I think "Lord of the Rings" was a byproduct of Tolkien's goal to invent the Elvish Language as a linguist. His thought process was that language sprung from the shared experiences of those that spoke the language and, therefore, in order for him to create a true language he would need to create a background history and thus emerged Middle Earth.”

“Anyone who thinks the Bush Administration dissolved after the election of Obama are kidding themselves ... they just transitioned to hardcore disinformation mode in an effort to rehabilitate the pathetic image of the President they served. They will continue to repeat lies and create myths until people either believe them or the information they put out is so discordant that the American people just abandon thought of the eight years of the Bush Regime in order to retain their sanity.

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term," translates as 2+2=5

Perino isn't just some innocent bubblehead. She knows what she is doing.”

“He is what he is.”

“Remember one important thing ... the goal of Scientific Researchers is to stay employed and keep getting grants. That is the top priority. Eisenhower even warned of it in his Military Industrial speech, if you want to check it out.

The fact is, I don't know the motiviations of researchers on either side of the issue. I do know that the glacers on Mount Kilimanjaro are receding at a accelerating rate and will likely be gone in a decade or so. I know that the ice is calving off of Antarctica at a rate not observed before. I know there is now a northwest passage opening for shipping where there hasn't regularly been before, I know that there is a problem with the migration of giant jellyfish into Japanese fishing grounds that is causing havoc because the ocean is warming. And I know that the rainy season in the Philippines is becoming erratic and causes problems for the farmers. I don't have a PhD but this data is readily available to anyone who cares to see it.”

“Of course Global Warming is real except to some right wing monkey who lacks powers of observation, and Energy Companies who make money off the status quo.”

“Probably already stated numerous times on this thread but worth repeating:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Albert Einstein”

“In the Philippines Elections are a blood sport.”

“What was done for these Banks was akin to the treasurer of a gambling town waiting at the entrance of the largest casino and paying off the losses of the high rollers with the revenue of the the city coffers as they exit, in hopes they will return to the town and grace it with their losses once again someday.

The question for this action, of course, is why?”