The "Fireside Chat" goes YouTube

[swivel]

Please don't be FDR

Basically, he wants more handouts to the losers and idiots in this country. Tax breaks for people who where irresponsible with their finances. More money for people that can't hold a job. Higher taxes for the people dumb enough to succeed.

Wall Street didn't get us into this mess, Prez, it was the greed on Main street.



And keep in mind that the number of people in the household has gone DOWN. You greedy motherfuckers on MAIN street, with your credit cards and $200,000 mortgages are FUCKING the rest of the world with your insatiable greed. And you assholes have the fucking nerve to blame honest, hard-working people on Wall street? How fucking dare you?

Obama, you are either a fucking idiot who doesn't understand how this happened, or a complete asshole for taking advantage of the situation and making it worse.

[Pete Bondurant]

Well, the people have spoken...and they have chosen image over substance. Congratulations, you starry eyed boneheads. You have elected to the American Presidency a tool of the most corrupt political machine in the United States...a man who has accomplished absolutely nothing in his entire political career...a man who defeated Alan Keyes to win his U.S. Senate seat. At a time when Pakistan is falling apart and Russia is flexing it's resurgant military might, Barak Obama will be sitting in the White House pretending to be the black F.D.R., who did not even make a dent in the Great Depression with his highly touted and equally highly ineffective New Deal.

[Stella]

Pete -- what you said since I could never say it as well.

{S}

[Pete Bondurant]

Pete -- what you said since I could never say it as well.

STELLA! STELLA!

[Stella]

That would be me.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

kinda reminds me of the guy who sells Ginsu knives or the lady who sells Green Bags... or maybe the guy who sells those super absorbent whatever clothes...

[swivel]

Can it get any more fucking obvious?

The reason this happened is because Americans got caught up in the next big craze. After the tech bubble, everyone wanted more easy money. With the MASSIVE tax breaks we give to people for owning as BIG A HOUSE AS POSSIBLE, coupled with too much regulation in our financial sector, you get a housing bubble that had to pop at some point.

Look at the benefits given to home owners! All mortgage interest is deductable, so the bigger the loan the more you save. We are promoting debt lifestyles! Also, if you live in your house for 2 measley years, you can sell it and keep $250,000 in profits TAX FREE. Also, if you have never PROVEN that you can keep up with your mortgage, we will give you extra hand-outs as a first-time home-buyer. Are you a minority? Here's MORE debt for you, then.

At the same time, we have an entire economy regulated by the Federal Reserve, a group of non-elected officials. They single-handedly determine the prime interest rates, which means, as the DEMAND for borrowing money INCREASES (as it did with the housing bubble) the PRICE of borrowing CAN'T. If the interest rates were determined on a free market, the mass hysteria caused by the frequent borrowing would increase the cost of borrowing. Interest rates would go up, and it would naturally slow down the runaway housing bubble. This is how all markets should operate.

American voters aren't stupid, they are just uneducated. They watch CNN and read USA Today instead of watching the BBC and reading the Economist. We must put an end to this ignorance. Do you fucking part, people. When you hear uneducated Americans bemoaning the "greed on Wall Street" ask them how much debt they currently have, and how much of it was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Could they have eaten beans and rice and put $50 in the bank every week for the past 10 years? Of course they could have. Do they have 100 channels of TV and a text-messaging plan? Of course they do. Do they check out books and movies from the library, or do they purchase them?

Who the fuck is greedy, people? Just look at those house sizes and tell me it is people on Wall Street that created this. We DEMANDED that they give us those loans and we would have bitched and moaned if they hadn't.

[CPL CHUD]

Obama's new plan to cure the economy reeks of the same old short sided temporary fix 'em ups that the government is known for during times of panic. His latest address to Americans calls for more of the same bullshit that has Wall Street jumping through hoops, jerking the wheels of the stock market back and forth between regulation and deregulation like a schizophrenic drunk, never finding that happy medium where trade is pure supply and pure demand, and the consumer is the sole dictator of necessity; big brother watching on to make sure everyone plays fairly.

Except now he doesn't just watch. Now Big Brother gets to reward bad behavior, greed, and bubble economics. His plan is essentially to bring us right back to the beginning, where borrowing more than you can afford is not frowned upon, but actually encouraged. He wants to give the lazy overweight chap sitting on his duff, bitching about living in a house with enough square footage to support an entire family while clutching welfare checks in his Cheetos stained mitt more incentives to borrow. Instead of rewarding the fiscally responsible we are going to hand money into the hands of people that have proven their hunger for wealth and materialistic nonsense far outweighs their common sense. We get to feed more pigs.

I'm really hoping that congress doesn't vote for another bailout today, this time for car makers that think they deserve special recognition for supporting unions that promote laziness and ineptitude while they supersaturate the domestic market with more vehicles than people could possibly need while foreign markets are for vehicles are rapidly emerging.

[Nell]

Ok after I sold my car I gained savings without borrowing. I still have two legs and a bus pass so it was cool. I had my baby and realized that I was still in a bit of a pinch, so we moved into a studio apartment from our one bedroom. It is $100 a month cheaper and has the added bonus of a free washer and dryer. Freed up somemore money again without borrowing. See where this is going? Now if 2 (sometimes 3) adults and an infant can live in a studio others can too. Which is why I agree with Swivel and Cpl Chud, they are just more eloquent than me.

[swivel]

Ok after I sold my car I gained savings without borrowing. I still have two legs and a bus pass so it was cool. I had my baby and realized that I was still in a bit of a pinch, so we moved into a studio apartment from our one bedroom. It is $100 a month cheaper and has the added bonus of a free washer and dryer. Freed up somemore money again without borrowing. See where this is going? Now if 2 (sometimes 3) adults and an infant can live in a studio others can too. Which is why I agree with Swivel and Cpl Chud, they are just more eloquent than me.

Fuck eloquence, bitch. Me LOVES the font you spew.

I got into a heated row on this topic today. A guy I used to work with was bashing corporations and bitching about the economy. I started pointing out places he could save money, and I was up to $500 a month when he got sheepish and shut the fuck up. We have a spectacular library up here, with free Internet, books, magazines, movies, COMICS, and audio books. You could get rid of DirecTV, your Internet, stop going out to movies, stop buying books and magazines, and that is $300 a month or more right there.

There is no denying that 500 channels of TV are wonderful to have if you aren't abusing them, but somehow they have become a necessity. People can't even fucking FATHOM renting books from the library and sitting in one place for 4 hours reading.

And, the number of cool ways to cook a potato boggle the brain.

[CPL CHUD]

Doesn't seem like this is going to go away soon.



I enjoyed how they made it a circular diagram. It seems to drive the point home.

[Lizard]

Don't think of it as a boom-and-bust cycle. Think of it as a pretty flower!

[SoUncool]

Doesn't seem like this is going to go away soon.



I enjoyed how they made it a circular diagram. It seems to drive the point home.

OMG! Look out!! It's going to be 1970 again soon!!!

[swivel]

Doesn't seem like this is going to go away soon.



I enjoyed how they made it a circular diagram. It seems to drive the point home.

Now overlay the interest rate moves of the Federal Reserve and see what it tells you...


(lmao @ Lizard and SuC)