financial meltdown

[miriam_e]

I hope all my friends in USA manage to weather this financial storm safely.

I've long disliked the insane dependence upon money these days and felt it to be exceedingly dangerous. Instead of feeling victorious at seeing the proof I can only shudder with horror and wish I'd been wrong.

Hopefully this period passes without too much damage to the ordinary folk. It would be nice, though, if this focusses attention on how much more of a threat the "greed is good" slogan is to life than terrorists. Terrorists never stood a hope of doing much damage, but obscenely wealthy corporate executives running scams could bring the entire country undone.

Comments

[sharpblonde.livejournal.com]

*sigh* They really can't keep printing money to solve their problems. It is horrible that the government there is beings so stupid with its money and endangering the livelihoods of such a huge proportion of its people. Not only that, it is an essential trade partner with Canada. We might have nearly as a hard a time weathering the storm the government has caused down there as they do. I'm not looking forward to it.

[dances-withcats.livejournal.com]

I've been saying for years that the current house of cards the financial system here in the US is built on can't possibly continue to stand, so I'm not surprised that the shit is hitting the fan now. And I'm sure it's hitting a lot harder than our media is telling us.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that they want a $700 billion bailout for a bunch of overpaid fucking fatcats, but they can't manage to scrape together the money for, say, a national health care system or financial aid for low-income college students or research for alternative energy or funding for sustainable agriculture or decent pay for teachers ... or any number of other things that would make life better for the vast majority of Americans who aren't billionaires.

Those fuckers.

I say let the house fall and let's start over again. Roosevelt gave us the New Deal, and the Bush administration is trying to give us the Screw Deal.

Edit: Here's a podcast of an episode of Public Radio International's radio show This American Life called "The Giant Pile of Money," which details how the mortgage crisis came to happen. This episode aired on May 9, 2008, and things have, of course, gotten exponentially worse since then. It's an hour-long show and well worth the listen.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yes, Canada has always been one of the few countries I would consider visiting or moving to. The closeness to USA was always both an attraction and a drawback. The current financial problems in USA make me glad I never decided to move. I'd still like to visit one day though.

Canada's stronger emphasis on social support instead of USA's obsession with carrots for the rich may be your best safety buffer against the problems. Good luck.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

The thing that bothers me about letting the crooked institutions crash is that the Republicans are in favor of that. This would indicate that the ultra-rich won't be hurt by the crash, only the little people. The crooks running the show will get away clean with their loot and the ordinary people will see all their money vanish.

Ways need to be found to yank all the money from those responsible and pay it back to those who were fleeced. Until that is done it will just happen again, and again, and again, and again, and again...

Thanks for the link to the show. Unfortunately the program is only in proprietary flash or itunes formats. I downloaded the transcript and will read it tonight.

You might be interested in a feature that Background Briefing did in September last year here in Australia about credit crooks from the USA and the shaky underpinnings that led to the credit crisis. They've made the mp3 available for download again.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/features/default.htm
The "find out more..." link takes you to the transcript.

us economy

[jenna2.livejournal.com]

here's to the melt down !
having watched it build for years and now it is upon us(me). Speaking as one of the crushie's I have spent the last year struggling along. having suffered some icky stuff trying to recover, playing catch up. I now sit on the verge of losing my home which I have spent the last 15+ years paying for. (payed off twice) making enough money to make it the next pay check and Gawd forbid any thing happen cause my money boat will sink.....oh wait! It did happen.. yet the government will "bail" out the Mort. co.'s banks etc. ha I say! burk had a nice theory he did the math for the billion dollar bail out and if they gave the money to each citizen 18+ each person would get 250,000+ and pay their mort's. thus saving the bank's etc. stimulating the economy, and get to own their homes
you see how that might benefit the regular people... As you may have guessed that plans way to simple. I did send it on to the white house not that I think the powers that be will even look at it.

So as a soon to be homeless in America person.. here's to the melt down Think I should move to the Au..
Jenna

Re: us economy

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Eeek! That's terrible news Jenna. I hope you don't lose your house.

It would be really stupid if they simply bail out the crooks, but then I guess we are talking about bush... stupid is as stupid does, and he's done plenty of stupid things.

Passing the bail-out money on to the people at the bottom sounds like a really cool plan. Greatest good for the greatest number and all that, and I think you're right, it would re-invigorate the economy and the banks. But I can't really see that happening. Seems to be this view in USA, and to a large extent over here too, that ordinary people don't deserve breaks -- only the rich and influential deserve help. Of course the rich generally don't need it, or they are the crooks who caused the problems in the first place.

It will be interesting to see how the fallout from this affects Australia. We copped it pretty badly when the Asian tiger economies crashed after they were fleeced by a few billionaires. Our previous prime minister tried hard to hitch our wagon firmly to the USA economy, which always scared me. Time will tell. I keep hearing talk that we're pretty well insulated from the worst, but that could just be lying politicians talking the situation up. We won't really know until the wave actually hits here. [sigh]

Got my fingers crossed for you.