Forum Post: Interested in what people believe helped contribute to our economic downturn.
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 8, 2011, 6:52 a.m. EST by Febs
(824)
from Plymouth Meeting, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Please state what you believe best represents your economic philosophy (if you don't know what yours is that is ok to) when you answer. If you're new to economics (especially macro) that's cool we all start someplace - just interested in hearing opinions and thoughts.
Thanks.
The downturn has actually been a very slow one. This started when President Nixon took us totally off the gold standard and to a pure fiat monetary system. Fiat money has never succeeded in the history of mankind. Fiat money is backed by nothing of intrinsic value, it's creation is paid for by the taxpayers through taxes on the national debt.
Staggering unsustainable debt, caused by liberal entitlement programs,
Need your help. pl. click the link and sign the petition to send the message to politicians and fix our economic problems. Need millions of signatures to get politicians attention and make this work. Here is the link:
http://www.change.org/petitions/members-of-congress-and-senators-fix-the-economy-and-balance-the-budget-now?pe=d4e
Political Partiers snorting too much Koch, living in Wonderland, out of touch with real Americans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOCHAv25uTw
just one word - greed
TR crushed it a century ago - but like any cancer - it is has slowly grown back.
supply side economics - admitted to be a fraud by its creator - Laffer - with ronnie - followed by the lemmings who blindly loved sweet gandpa criminal who watered the disease with trickle down. AND WE LET THEM DO THIS!!
Focus. Do you want to talk about the Wall Street contrived and Congress empowered economic collapse or do you want to talk about people's economic philosophy? They are two different animals. (;^>)
The economic collapse was/is caused by the growing abandonment by Wall Street and politicians of proven Keynesian economic systems in favor of the adoption of a libertarian greed is good based predatory economic expedience. That is the philosophy out of the way.
The practical is that in 1999 the bi-partisan U.S. Congress and the Clinton (Goldman-Sachs subsidiary) White House passed S-900, The Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial Services Modernization Act. This law was the basis and groundwork for the financial collapse nine years later.
S-900 repealed Glass-Steagall. In doing this the law opened the door for "too big to fail" combinations of commercial and investment banks.
S-900 lowered regulatory standards for "toxic derivatives" that these banks then used in these fraudulent ways with impunity.
S-900 reorganized the Community Reinvestment Bank by lowering borrowing standards and allowing the kinds of predatory mortgage practices that recent federal law suits against major banks assert defrauded Fannie May and Freddie Mac out of hundreds of billions of dollars. More important, defrauded millions of tax paying Americans out of billions in accumulated home equity and savings power.
Not so coincidentally, of the thousands of people who have passed through congress since 1999, nine of the twelve members of the congressional debt super committee voted in favor of S-900 in 1999. Small world.
Members of the Congressional Budget Super Committee who voted for S-900:
Toxic Pat Toomey - PA (R) Sen. Kyl, Jon [R-AZ]
Rep. Camp, Dave [R-MI-4]
Rep. Upton, Fred [R-MI-6]
Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA] Sen. Baucus, Max [D-MT]
Sen. Kerry, John F. [D-MA]
Rep. Clyburn, James E. [D-SC-6]
Rep. Becerra, Xavier [D-CA-31]
My freshman U.S. senator "Toxic" Pat Toomey, was in the House in 1999 and stood on the floor to defend both the repeal and the derivatives. Here is his floor speech:
"The repeal of Glass-Steagall is necessary so that consumers can get the products and services they desire and American financial firms can compete in the global marketplace.
Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight just one small part of this sweeping legislation. I am particularly pleased that this bill includes an important provision regarding certain derivative transactions, especially credit and equity swaps. These somewhat obscure products are actually very important tools used by businesses, including financial service firms, to manage a variety of risks that they face. This bill reaffirms that swap contracts are legitimate bank products that can be executed and booked in banks and are adequately regulated by and will continue to be regulated by banking supervisors."
Here is a list that I composed for the 2010 elections of all of the still sitting in 2010 members of congress who voted in 1999 for S-900. There are also links to the official vote for S-900 so people can see the politicians who today are governors and or elected or appointed officials who voted for the financial collapse of America in 1999.
http://home.ptd.net/~aahpat/aandc/congcrash.html
I find people's economic philosophy tends to severely color what they view as contributing causes to the collapse.
More limit than color.
Bravo! Also back in the 2006 time frame the Fed stopped reporting the M3 money supply (what the big boys are doing) so the little guys wouldn't be able to see the turmoil coming until it was to late. I think it was in 2005 the bankruptcy abuse prevention act was passed to pull the rug out from under unsuspecting home owners. The government saw this coming years out, and instead of taking action to protect the citizens the government... both democrats and republicans... took extraordinary measures to protect the big money.
All true.
As criticisms and warnings mounted the Congress basically went back to Wall Street, over and over, and asked the victimizers how to prevent their victimization of the nation.
Cognitive dissonance running a nation. Otherwise known as Alfred E. Newman 'what, me worry?' libertarian economics.
Corporatism.
Private central banking / The PRIVATE Federal Reserve's monetary policies.
Breakdown of the family unit and societal values and morals.
The welfare state.
The nanny state.
The (militarized) police state.
The (futile) war on drugs.
The (futile) war on terror.
Perpetual illegal wars for oil and other resources.
Corruption in government at all levels and in all parties.
Corporate lobbying.
Unrestrained derivatives trading by mega banks that own Washington.
Lack of adherence to the US Constitution.
Dumbing down of Americans deliberately though government indoctrination in schools across the entire education system.
The Military Industrial Complex.
The erosion of personal freedoms and the explosion of big brother (TSA etc)
International free trade agreements
Unaccountable, unelected supranational organizations : World Bank, IMF, IPCC etc
The revolving door between Washington and Wall St