Monday, September 15, 2008

The Second Republican Great Depression



I'll get back to Martial Arts very soon, I promise.
--But today is the start of the "Crash".
The other day I read a blog entry by a very nice lady, a family person with a young professional husband. She is a McCain/Palin supporter who commented that she has prospered under the eight years of the Cheney administration. Her only complaint seemed to be the rising price of gas. Everything else in her world view was just fine.
Obviously, some people remain insulated from the tremendously bad times we are approaching. Their kids are too young to fight in the Republican wars. They benifeted from a good college education. They can afford a new house when the market is overloaded with empty, available housing from the hard financial times their neighbors have experianced.
Bottom line is, the shit has hit the fan. The Republicans, specificly John McCain's economic advisor Phil Grahm have engineered the deregulation of financial markets that have now begun to collapse. They hid the scheme well, and the wealth of the country steadily poored upward into the pockets of the wealthiest people in America.
--By all indications, this is just the beginning. Alan Greenspan (who helped put many of these bad policies in motion) has said this looks like a "Once in a century event". Let's see what the ripple is when the Asian markets weigh in.
Here's a summary:
A Return to Black Monday
Published 09/15/08 Craig Harrington - Print Article
E-mail - editor@economyincisis.org
Wall Street stumbled mightily over the weekend with the simultaneous sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings, according to The New York Times.
Another crisis looms on the horizon with American International Group (AIG) days away from bankruptcy. The last time Wall Street firms were in such dire straights was Oct. 19, 1987, Black Monday, when the Dow Jones fell 22 percent and several prominent firms collapsed under the weight of losses. Last month Harvard University professor Kenneth Rogoff predicted that the worst was yet to come in the U.S. financial sector. Many investors had hoped that the crisis was nearing its end, but the events of the last few days have proven otherwise.
***Here's a link to follow

3 comments:

Martial Development said...

I don't think it is fair to pin this one on the Republicans. After all, Bill Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had prevented the coupling of investment banking and lending. And Obama would be largely powerless to reverse the trend.

Let's blame the plutocrats.

Dojo Rat said...

Republican Phil Grahm, McCain's economic advisor hid the deregulation and repeal of Glass-Steagal in a huge unreadable bill and pushed it through a Republican Senate. Same with the deregulation they now call 'The Enron loophole", deregulating the energy industry - creating the unregulatable "Dark Markets"
-With that said, Bill Clinton was the best **Republican** president we ever had. (humor intended)
Let's see what the markets do today...

Sean C. Ledig said...

Hey MD,

I'm no fan of Bill Clinton, but the fact remains, he's been out of office for nearly eight years!

When are the Republicans going to stop blaming him for everything and take some responsibility for the fact that THEIR president and THEIR congress has been fiddling while this new Rome burns?

The Iraq War and the subsequent tripling of fuel prices has created a ripple effect throughout the economy.

But you are right about one thing - Obama would largely be powerless to do anything about it. There won't be a Second Democratic New Deal because the Republicans have bankrupted this country with THEIR deficits.

Thanks to Republican presidents like Reagan (National Debt, $3 trillion), Bush, Sr., (National Debt, balloons to $5 billion) and this current Bush ($9 billion and growing) sucking at Red China's teat, money that could be used to provide healthcare, restore the countries infrastructure, find alternatives to oil, etc., will be going to pay interest on the National Debt.

Funny how the Republicans like to say the Democrats were "soft on communism" yet they're best buddies with the Chinese.