Rest In Peace, America

[yourmomma 0]

When our lives improve, 10 will get you 20 that Bush policy will be the cause. When I first paid taxes in 63 I was relived to know that most of my family’s money was being used to fight those dirty commies who wanted 100% as opposed to my free country who only wanted 90%. After deciding not to be productive due to the lack of incentive, I was renewed the opportunity to make money again thru the Reagan tax cuts. Then Clinton(oh excuse me that was Bush 41) took office, RAISED the tax rate and again I was forced to quit making money. Fortunately it was the 90’s and nobody was making money and creating business. Then a competent man took office, the Clinton internet bubble burst (I am still fuming over the taxpayer cost of that one!!!!!) and Bush “the awesome” lowered my tax rate by 4% and again, I had a reason to make money and give it to folks who make 60K and want a million dollar home. However the dems had other plans and decided to use my tax cuts to pay for 2 wars and the banking system. I am afraid what big government controls this socialist will implement. Surly they will not be modest like the department of homeland security. My spirit is only boyed by my ability to vote for a war hero and vapid cunt.

[jgoose71 0]

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So why don't you articulate EXACTLY what is wrong with this choice we made? Is it that only a republican is capable of really aiding us in our current crises? Or is it because *OMG* he's NOT a white man?

It's not that he is black or white, though I do think that the democratic party definitely exploited the race card. It's just that this guy is so far to the left that if he was to ever visit California, the leftward forces exerted on the state would cause it to finally break free of the US and drift towards China or Russia.

Both parties have extremists in their ranks, but of the 2 candidates, McCain was the lesser of the 2 evils. All I can do now is cry in my beer and know that the country survived Jimmy Carter, so even though it will be painful, it will survive Obama too.

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[mr2mk1g 10]

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the dems had other plans and decided to use my tax cuts to pay for 2 wars

That was the dems??

[MikeMcLean 0]

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The ignorant back-water religious freaks are for now, put to the back of the proverbial bus as the minority.

Unfortunately the passing of California Prop 8, Florida Prop 2 and Arizona Prop 102 -- and probably more that didn't hit my awareness radar -- demonstrate that the back-water religious freaks are not necessarily on the back of the bus.

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Never before in my life have I been as proud of my country as I am right now.

Today, when I should be able to agree with you I can't. I'm deeply ashamed of this country's voting and seriously pissed that other people's imaginary friends continue to influence the running of our country.

It wouldn't hurt you to think like a fucking serial killer every once in a while - just for the sake of prevention

[MikeMcLean 0]

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Sore loser #4

Ad hominem rhetoric is so much easier than real discourse.

It wouldn't hurt you to think like a fucking serial killer every once in a while - just for the sake of prevention

[Skyrad 0]

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No, a flag really IS hanging upside down outside our door.

Though I don't agree with displaying the flag in that manner, I have to stand by Chad by what he believes is going to happen to our country. I felt like Obama would win, so it's not really surprising to me. There is something very eery about Obama that I can't quite put my finger on. I'm sure he'll be bringing lots of changes with his presidency.

What I think is REALLY sad, is how many people put hope in Obama instead of God; looking to Obama for any kind of salvation.

So I take it that you will be praying to God to guide Obama?

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[yourmomma 0]

That was the dems??

yes

[chuckakers 370]

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If America ever does fall it will be because of fucking idiots that cant spell and think people who can are elitists

Or perhaps because of people who can't use proper punctuation.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[DSE 3]

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Sore loser #4

Ad hominem rhetoric is so much easier than real discourse.

But it's impossible to have a real discourse with people that are improperly hanging flags upside down and creating tombstones for the death of America out of some disillusioned state that our country has fallen.

edit]not aimed at anyone in particular.
Funny thing. First president in recent elections to win BOTH the pop and electoral vote. No words of "God wanted him in the WHITE house were spoken, just the majority of the country has spoken. We took the house and senate too. Your good ole' boy Bush has left this to you. So if you truly believe America has fallen apart, blame him for the tragedy that most are smart enough to recognize as a blessing.

If ANYONE has had the call to hang a flag upside down or erect a tombstone to America, it's been those that did not believe in Bush in 00' and 04'. We have watched powerlessly as he and his buddies systematically raped, pillaged, and now somewhat burned our country, filling their coffers with lucre.
No one here (AFAIK) is rubbing it in your nose that we won. But there certainly is a gnashing of teeth, renting of clothes. Wonder how much ash and sackcloth we'll see the theives of washington wearing...
They've been caught out, and you've been duped.
America has spoken, and it was the people of America that spoke, not some fucked-up disillusionment that God willed it.

[MikeMcLean 0]

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No one here (AFAIK) is rubbing it in your nose that we won.

Rubbing what in my nose? That the candidate I voted for won? I'm confused.

It wouldn't hurt you to think like a fucking serial killer every once in a while - just for the sake of prevention

[mr2mk1g 10]

So, how was the Republican President intending to pay for war he started?

[Belgian_Draft 0]

Not that I agree with the practice, but it is not illegal to hang a flag upside down. Or rub dirt into it. Or burn it. Those are all protected under freedom of speech.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[wmw999 2,122]

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I wonder if all the people freaking out over this would be as upset if Obama was a republican. Oh, wait - would you even let a black man make it to the Republican primary???

Yes, they would. Die-hard democrats would automatically hate him, and die-hard republicans would love him. Some black folks who had always voted democratic would vote for him because all of a sudden they were seeing the issues in a new light, some simply because he is black. Same for some white voters, voting for the democratic candidate.

Yeah, really.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[chuckakers 370]

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We've been propelled into a warrantless War, an economic crisis based on unbound spending.

Sorry to pee on your parade, but the country's economic woes are due largely to the lowering of lending standards in the mortgage industry during the 90's. The (democrat led) congress forced legislation that allowed people to buy homes they couldn't afford with no down payment, and not even an income verification process, and then banks that bucked the laws were politically beaten down by the likes of organizations like ACORN.

In fact, Bush asked congress three seperate times to review and tighten lending standards to a reasonable level to reverse what economists called a looming disaster.

Just the facts.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[kallend 1,623]

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Sore loser #4

Ad hominem rhetoric is so much easier than real discourse.

What's to discourse with someone who hangs the US Flag upside down after a legal, constitutional election that his champion lost? It's as fine a demonstration of sorelosership as I've seen.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[nerdgirl 0]

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We've been propelled into a warrantless War, an economic crisis based on unbound spending.

Sorry to pee on your parade, but the country's economic woes are due largely to the lowering of lending standards in the mortgage industry during the 90's. The (democrat led) congress forced legislation that allowed people to buy homes they couldn't afford with no down payment, and not even an income verification process, and then banks that bucked the laws were politically beaten down by the likes of organizations like ACORN.

In fact, Bush asked congress three seperate times to review and tighten lending standards to a reasonable level to reverse what economists called a looming disaster.

Just the facts.

That's a popular version of 'facts' that doesn't necessarily reconcile with other observations of 'facts' on causal factors, underlying structural changesof banking, credit, and financial institutions; shifting of risk; spending (including, yes, the GWOT):

(1) Joe Stiglitz (Nobel Prize Winner in Economics)

“There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely.

“President Bush famously said, a little while ago, that the problem is simple: Too many houses were built. Yes, but the answer is too simplistic: Why did that happen?

“One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour.

“For all the new-fangled financial instruments, this was just another one of those financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid scheme. The new ‘innovations’ simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises. But one needs to push further: Why did the Fed fail?

“First, key regulators like Alan Greenspan didn't really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation -- an oxymoron.

“Second, the macro-economy was in bad shape with the collapse of the tech bubble. The tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy but to give a largesse to the wealthy -- the group that had been doing so well over the last quarter-century.

“The coup d’grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad. The Fed took seriously its responsibility to keep the economy going. It did this by replacing the tech bubble with a new bubble, a housing bubble. Household savings plummeted to zero, to the lowest level since the Great Depression. It managed to sustain the economy, but the way it did it was shortsighted: America was living on borrowed money and borrowed time.

“Finally, at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They -- and even more their executives -- had incentives that were not well aligned with the needs of our economy and our society. They were amply rewarded, presumably for managing risk and allocating capital, which was supposed to improve the efficiency of the economy so much that it justified their generous compensation. But they misallocated capital; they mismanaged risk -- they created risk. They did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking.”

(2) Alan Greenspan on new economic schemes and regulating risk & the reality that regulation will never keep up with innovation and new methods of hiding and manipulation in financial schemes

: “risk models and econometric models – as complex as they have become, are still too simple to capture the full array of governing variables that drive global economic reality.” Add globalization and interconnected/interdependent international markets into the mix and the situations becomes even more complicated.

(3) Recognition of the correlation between defaulting on home mortgages and inflated housing values

, e.g., as this Kansas City, MO, column discusses “Where did the mortgage mess come from?”[/url] (More detailed discussion here)

Foreclosures rates in urban and rural areas of Mississippi (lowest per capita State income), *where the housing prices are reasonable,* has been on par with historical averages. Where housing prices have skyrocketed, e.g., California, which leads w/8 of the highest foreclosure communities, the foreclosures rates are the highest.

If a lower-income" mortgage is $150,000, it takes 3 of those loans defaulting to equal one $450,000 mortgage default or 6 of those loans defaulting to equal one $900,000 McMansion default (altho’ parts of California, $900k is a 1500ft^2 single-family home).

Historically, some very small percentage of home loans have defaulted and led to foreclosures (~1.5%, iirc), when the average default was some relatively smaller value, the impact could be adsorbed by the larger economic system; as mortgage defaults grew larger both in absolute number and average value, it’s a larger pressure on the system.

What would be very interesting, imo, is to compare and contrast across countries (both those in turmoil and more stable) banking systems, regulations (both existence and enforcement), inflation of property values, saving rates, ease of extension of private credit, and connectedness on the global market.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[kallend 1,623]

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We've been propelled into a warrantless War, an economic crisis based on unbound spending.

Sorry to pee on your parade, but the country's economic woes are due largely to the lowering of lending standards in the mortgage industry during the 90's. The (democrat led) congress forced legislation that allowed people to buy homes they couldn't afford with no down payment, and not even an income verification process, and then banks that bucked the laws were politically beaten down by the likes of organizations like ACORN.

In fact, Bush asked congress three seperate times to review and tighten lending standards to a reasonable level to reverse what economists called a looming disaster.

Just the facts.

IN FACT, the CRA loan default rate was no higher than that of "regular" mortages. The problem was NOT CRA loans, it was subprime loans created by greedy brokers so they could collect large commissions, which were then packaged into securities and greedily gobbled up by Wall Street's "masters of the universe".

JUST THE FACTS.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[NoShitThereIWas 0]

Yeah, those are the same brilliant minds who were most likely responsible for our last President. It is quite embarrasing that they call themselves American quite frankly. I'd say that if you are so disgusted with this country that you are hanging flags upside down and believe God should be the one you are concerned with, perhaps you should live in a country run by faith and not democracy. Perhaps you should move to someplace like the middle east where they believe in dying for their God to prove a point. I am disgraced by these people, especially after all of us had to endure the last President who was as anti American as they get. I agree. Love it or LEAVE it.

Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires."

Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

[livendive 8]

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No, a flag really IS hanging upside down outside our door.

Though I don't agree with displaying the flag in that manner, I have to stand by Chad by what he believes is going to happen to our country.

Tell him he might as well drag it through mud and then set it on fire while he's at it. Meanwhile the rest of us will celebrate a good day in the story of our nation.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[Gato 0]

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Yes, they would. Die-hard democrats would automatically hate him, and die-hard republicans would love him. Some black folks who had always voted democratic would vote for him because all of a sudden they were seeing the issues in a new light, some simply because he is black. Same for some white voters, voting for the democratic candidate.

Yeah, really.

I see where you're coming from - the diehards from either party will almost always have a double standard.

I won't deny that it's probably true that a LOT of people voted for him because he's black - and there are probably as many who did not vote for him because of that.

The truth is, at least in my case, that if the John McCain who spoke last night in the concession speech had been the same man who had campaigned for the president, I would have had a rough time deciding who to vote for. The guy I saw speaking last night was classy, ELOQUENT, and inspiring. The guy I saw campaigning was erratic, nasty, and insulting. And as far as his "bulldog" in-training goes:

I STILL do not understand the reasoning (besides strengthening the Republican base) behind choosing Palin as his running mate. If he was TRULY about country first, he could not, in good conscience, choose someone who is clearly not qualified to succeed him.

For what it's worth, I voted for Obama because I believe he stands a better chance of healing our relationships with the other countries on this planet. He strikes me as intelligent, humble, and thoughtful. His relationships with his wife and kids plays a small part, as well. I'm tired of us always electing somebody who's prone to fucking around on his wife. Having grown up with that dynamic, I won't ever knowingly vote for a adulterer or philanderer.

My .02

T.I.N.S.

[DJL 232]

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If America ever does fall it will be because of fucking idiots that cant spell and think people who can are elitists

More than likely America will fall because of over-educated idiots who can spell every word in the dictionary but are too freakin' stupid to kill their own supper.
This country was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of men and women who couldn't spell and thought of educated folk as elitists.

You're right and then Columbus landed and as unfortunate as it was, the educated people took over.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[idrankwhat 0]

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I could use quite a few very cold beers and maybe a few shots of vodka to deal with this shit. Thank God I'm still a college student and I'm not going to have the rug completely torn out from underneath me.

Good for you for studying hard in school and not paying attention to politics. But in case you're wondering, the rug's been gone for quite a few years now. You should be happy today. The theocratic party of nation building, massive deficit spending, government fattening, torturing, and war mongering is on its way out.

[idrankwhat 0]

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He loves his country so much he wont wear a flag pin.

Would somebody get that?! It seems that the record's stuck.....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....the record's stuck....

[skydyvr 0]

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There is something very eery about Obama that I can't quite put my finger on.

I had that same exact feeling, but now I've figured it out.

See, Obama can actually formulate and articulate complete sentences. This is something I had forgotten presidents could do. It'll take some getting used to, but ultimately, I believe we'll survive this oddity.

. . =(_8^(1)

[jumpwally 0]

Wow, dude, sounds like you are one of those that cant find joy in anything,,,may i suggest putting your balls in a vise and then perhaps drill one of your eyes out...will you be happy then.?

My folks always told me to bust ass harder than the person next to me..the last 3 decades have been great for me,,i've done everything i wanted and more. I am far from a millionare, but man this is a great country and don't forget it !!! Go and try living in another country and not make money and see how life sucks then..........wake up, quit whinning !!!

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083