Soros: Repairing the financial system will not stop a severe worldwide recession. The U.S. consumer can no longer serve as the motor of the world economy, the U.S. government must stimulate demand.
Did a Fox news executive decide to go after Congressman Frank because O'Reilly was embarrassed in front of 800,000 people who caught the meltdown on YouTube?
That's right folks -- it's private profits and social losses. Instead of an effort to safeguard us, this plan takes from taxpayers to provide unjustifiable subsidies to financial institutions.
I believe now is the time for Obama to consider a bolder and more historic approach to the financial crisis by presenting to middle income Americans a step-by-step "big think" FDR-style New Deal program.
Didn't the Wall Street bailout stop the economy's bleeding? No. The US has exported a ton of toxic mortgages to, well, everybody. Now we're all in this together.
There is much more to be done to clean up the economic mess flowing from the housing market crash, but the ill-considered federal bailout is likely to slow the process.
If we accept that collectively we are better off morally and economically with speeding recovery from the current crisis through avenues of forgiveness, many practical actions are possible.
I wouldn't wish the current economic situation on ourselves. But we're here, and I can find real cause for optimism in an electorate that suddenly understands what we're up against as a country.
Suze Orman is warning that if Americans are not careful, they will end up with no savings, no credit, no car, no house, no mortgage, etc. In other words, Americans are in danger of living the way I've been living for the past 25 years.
Don't let them tell you this economic meltdown is a complicated mess. It's not. Our national financial crisis is readily understood by anyone who has seen greed and hypocrisy.
The current crisis is the predictable (and predicted) result of a massive U.S. housing bubble, which itself can be traced in part to global economic imbalances that could have been prevented.
The market did not understand that families buying homes would have an incentive to default on their mortgage obligations if housing prices stopped rising or actually declined.
That's easy. You ask them how failure to pass the bailout will give us a Great Depression.
I am angry. Disgusted. Disappointed. Nevertheless, I will vote for hope, even if scant and waning, because the alternative is just too frightening to consider.
As the US economy continues to crater, there's plenty of blame to go around. Apparently, way around.
It seems that every significant event in history leads to a new vocabulary - new words or, old words and phrases used in new ways. The last year has ...
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With the exception of the premise (that the government owns anything) being false, the article has some nice ideas.
Sarah Palin you disgust me.
Read about Aerial Wolf Hunting:
http://www.Vaboomer.com
And indirectly, plan homes better with smaller sq. ft. don't encourage homes with a lot of bathrooms (which I see a lot of now, every bedroom is ensuite-how selfish) and with household size small why the need for 5 and 6 bedroom homes. And discourage 3 car garages it only encourages buying more cars and getting more junk. Perhaps this goes with the No McMansion in the post. And yup why the need for a massive master bath, I'll bet that 'oval roman tub' is hardly used, go back to a 3/4 bath with a shower-it worked fine in the past, and humans aren't that much different. Oh and lets not forget, unless you have 'household staff' (ie who may be illegals/undocumented anyway) you actually have to clean all that sq. ft. and maintain all that huge lot. (altho with a lotta mcmansions it's a big house on a small lot-not a good thing either-people complain of it being overscaled for the neighborhood)
Love these ideas. I've had many of the same. A few years ago, I read an article about Toll Bros. the largest builder of McMansions in the US. At one point, they offered an insulation upgrade, something like R19 to R23. Only a tiny percentage of people even asked about it. Most of the wealthy had/have little interest in energy efficiency, even though they are the ones most able to afford the initial cost of solar panels, for example.
Zoning in one "affordable home" neighborhood near me, consists of homes on bigger lots having to be at least 2000 sq. ft. Thus you have retired singles or couples living in 2000 sq. ft. homes and up. It is ridiculous. A lot of that has to do with exterior appearance, that "small" means poor means lowering property values, even though small houses can mean more space between homes, open up views, and look nice in a neighborhood. Anyone whose yard borders a small house knows that their view is much more open, than if a McMansion were built there. I'd like to see 500 to 800 sq. ft homes for retirees and single people.
People do not need a lounge in their bedroom, or a master bath the size of a garage. Then there are these multiple home owning rich, who are keeping 3+ households going. It is like being wealthy is a license to consume AND pollute ten times as much as average, with no penalty or responsibility required.
It's not just the wealthy who have no interest in conserving energy. My husband is an example. We are far from rich but he refuses to believe that any of the appliances, computers, pumps and fishtank equipment he plugs in or lights he leaves on, etc. have any direct effect on our electric bill. He just refuses to believe it! What can you do with people like that? Make laws, I guess.
Get a meter to read each appliance. You plug it in and then use it...you can also see how much energy it pulls when not in use...such as a stove or coffee pot. There is a place called Real Goods that sell them. You can also shut everything down and go look at the meter and then you go in and start turning things back on while your husband watches the meter. Hope this helps.
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