Voted Repub for Senate and House (in VA). Also voted against the marriage amendment because it was too restrictive as written.
Early and as often as possible.
Ted Haggard is not running for any office. He was just a lame, lying hypocrite abusing his position of leadership and influence over a very large voting bloc to pimp for the ultra-right fundie Republican agenda. It follows that the entire agenda is suspect, and the motives and integrity of anyone who previously stood with him should, at a minimum, be closely examined.
CaptnKirk
Lifer
- Jul 25, 2002
- 10,053
- 0
- 71
Mixed to the level that I voted for the Non-Republican candidate in each and every office.
If there was a Democrat that's where the vote went.
If there was no Democrat, but an Independant - that's what I did.
If there was only an unopposed Republican, I left that choice blank and moved on.
Sad - Been voting for Republicans since 1964, but cannot, nor will not, support them now - maybe never again.
The Extremist Right stole my party, and I will not give them a pass to continue the corruption of the party that they have effectively destroyed.
If there was a Democrat that's where the vote went.
If there was no Democrat, but an Independant - that's what I did.
If there was only an unopposed Republican, I left that choice blank and moved on.
Sad - Been voting for Republicans since 1964, but cannot, nor will not, support them now - maybe never again.
The Extremist Right stole my party, and I will not give them a pass to continue the corruption of the party that they have effectively destroyed.
1. Stock market doesn't mean squat. All that is happening is irrational exuberance and asset flight from housing to the stock market, driving prices up. P/E ratios are rediculously high and do not reflect fundamentals.
2. The economy is not good. Last time I checked, even the most optimistic numbers erased 30%+ from GDP in the next year as housing continues to slide. This of course, was only housing, but not including the debt spending and equity cash-out the average American has been utilizing to pay for plasmas and new cars. According to most expert estimates, GDP would be in negative territory had this equity cash-out not taken place.
As housing continues to tank, many who utilized equity that was a ghost, paper tiger, or a mirage, will be flipped on mortgages as they become more house-poor, further contracting the economy.
3. Low unemployment isn't spectacular. All it means is that more money is chasing fewer people, resulting in above-normal wages, which causes inflation. Furthermore, as housing and the ancillary markets are affected, this number should go down quite a bit.
The economy of today is no more real than 2000. Both ignored fundamentals, both were based upon irrational exuberance, both ignored potential down-times. What makes this one even worse is that it is not based upon asset sales and realized gains, but based upon leverage, unrealized gains, and mortgages that can reprice.
The last time a broker gave somebody a 1% 300,000 loan with 10% collateral was in 1929. Look what happened there. Now that's what has happened as we have allowed lenders to shrug off oversight.
All of this could have been prevented by moderate talk from the President. However, moderation doesn't win elections or keep your poll numbers up, it makes people wary, something a sitting President doesn't want. Furthermore, "monkey see monkey do" is a perfect analogy, people see him spending like there is no tommorrow so they do the same.
I am voting straight democrat. 6 years ago, when I voted for Bush I would *NEVER* have thought I would do this. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me
(not even the baboon got that one right)
Correct me if I am wrong (I do not have a huge amount of knowledge on muni bonds), but bond referendums call for borrowing of funds with future payment utilizing tax revenue (or revenue from the source of funds needed, such as a stadium or school (state fund match). Furthermore, that money requires interest payments. Even though many munis are tax-free (thus have lower coupons), they still cost money.
Some muni bonds go toward dollar-rolls, whereby the funding committment needs to be extended and as paper matures, other paper is sold to "roll" the funding.
Finally, not everybody wants to support bonds which have proceeds going towards projects they might not like. One example I can think of were bond attempts at my old school when administrators were padding the budget or including "goodies" that weren't really needed.
mixed...although in my case I'm not going to vote for any arses that voted for the war. For me in CA it was more about propositions.
Ones that stick out right now are proposition 1D: funding for schools...I'm goipng to vote yes only because I figure if we go into debt, we might as well waste that money on education (although at my school the shool of engineering will only get 3 milllion...and humanities arts, etac will get something like 80% of the ~110 million they will receive...what a rip!)
no on the ciggarette tax (I've been innundated by non smoking ads for 12 years and don't smoke as a result...so those who do smoke will do it regardless oh how many hours they get to exposure of the evils of cigarettes. That and the tax hurts the poor and low middle class the most. Rich people who smoke won't be affected by 2.50 per pack as much as a poor person, and IMO ciggarettes are pretty inelastic)
no on the tax on refining gas in CA....it hurts us at the expense of other states (although I do want development in alternative fuels...but not as it stands)
thats all i can remember for now And hopefully our republican will get booted....but since its the OC the chances of that are pretty slim
Ones that stick out right now are proposition 1D: funding for schools...I'm goipng to vote yes only because I figure if we go into debt, we might as well waste that money on education (although at my school the shool of engineering will only get 3 milllion...and humanities arts, etac will get something like 80% of the ~110 million they will receive...what a rip!)
no on the ciggarette tax (I've been innundated by non smoking ads for 12 years and don't smoke as a result...so those who do smoke will do it regardless oh how many hours they get to exposure of the evils of cigarettes. That and the tax hurts the poor and low middle class the most. Rich people who smoke won't be affected by 2.50 per pack as much as a poor person, and IMO ciggarettes are pretty inelastic)
no on the tax on refining gas in CA....it hurts us at the expense of other states (although I do want development in alternative fuels...but not as it stands)
thats all i can remember for now
And hopefully our republican will get booted....but since its the OC the chances of that are pretty slimBecause it will be much better for you to pay their medical bills? The same "poor" people complaining about the cigarette tax hurting them are the same ones using the lottery as their retirement fund.
I voted for every tax cut and against some crap that would regulate our electricity and raise rates. I voted libertarian (Bruce Guthrie) for senate, voted for only 2 local republicans (more like republitarians ), and left the rest of the R vs D stuff blank.
), and left the rest of the R vs D stuff blank.
Classic Democrat Response, thanks!! Negitivity and Fear-Mongering ..Doom and Gloom. I'm really surprised you admitted that you voted for bush in 2000 (or was that just a ploy to give your statement some semblance of credibilty?)
I can't say I was around in '29, but most economic experts would agree that the global financial network is far too interwoven these days for depression like in 1929 to ever occur again.
I remember you dems shouting depression-is-a-coming over the huge credit card balances people were carrying in the '80' & 90's. Or course that never happened either. Doom and Gloom ..the sky is falling.
What, no comment on Carter? Lets talk about a dems poster boy here. Everybody wants change ..change is always good, huh. Wiki 1979 - 80 and read about the: economy, double digit inflation, interest rates in the upper teens, housing market hitting bottom and a president that was too wussy to deal with the hositage fiasco in Iran.
1. I am not a Democrat, I only vote it since anything in office now is more liberal than any democrat in the last 20 years. True Republicans are gone, small government, fiscal discipline, and isolationism are dead. 50% greater debt, personal debt at an all-time high, and stupidity is abound. This has nothing to do with "gloom and doom" nor a Democrat response. My job *IS* in the credit area, capital markets related. My whole education (except a psych undergrad) is finance. I work for a top10 bank and securitization and I analyze stocks in my spare time. I also teach finance to undergrads part time, so yeah, you can stick that ignorant pigeonholing response down your pipe and smoke it.
2. I did vote for Bush in 2000, because he promised to revive the economy, be ****FISCALLY RESPONSABLE***** and be moderate in his agenda. 9/11 changed all of that, he became (or always was) a spendster with no domestic agenda and a fearmongering chickenhawk unilateral international agenda.
3. 1929 can happen again and it has nothing to do with the interconnectedness of the global economy. 1989 it got pretty dang close and was only stopped by the speed bumps in the trading systems and increased margin requirements. Irrational exuberance seen in 1929 and prior (tulip bulbs) is still abound. Just take a look at the housing thread I post in.
4. America owes 700 BILLION dollars in credit cards. Even adjusted for inflation, that number is 3x higher than *ANY* number in history. Most of that is funded by secondary marketed bonds (securitization) sold to investors, many of whom are international. Added to that, we owe *MUCH* more in secured debt than any time in history.
Compound that with the fact that most of that borrowing was secured by inflated housing which is now crashing.
My comparison to '29 was to highlight that back then, people would borrow on margin a few hundred dollars to buy stocks, which almost collapsed the country. Now, we are handing people 300,000 with low credit, low rates, and either 10% or 0% down and letting them gamble that they can pay *AND* the house will appreciate.
5. Inflation hit double digit due to, yet again, irrational exuberance in the market (albeit a bit less) and the fact that monetary policy set by the fed was stupid. Massive rate shocks and going off of the normal standard combined with the energy shocks created massive problems, all of which had nothing to do with Carter per se.
You can tout your King/President all you want and how great he is. You can *CLAIM* that the economy is awesome. However, borrowing from the present is only a tax on future revenue. You are taking income from the future and bringing it to today. Thus, tomorrow you will have to pay for it.
We already have sovereign debt that went from 6T to 9T. We have an economy that is leveraged to death and is about to tank (borrowed time), and we are stuck in a quagmire war where the President was too wussy to deal with it properly (or not at all).
Reality sucks, get used to it because your choices are going to end up hurting everybody.
Republicans are fun to make fun of so even if they win it's a win win.:laugh:
BTW, I voted Democrat just like I did every time before.
BTW, I voted Democrat just like I did every time before.
The Depression will never happen again because the Fed seems to have gotten monetary policy right over the past 25 years. Add to that, the fact that we aren't on the horrible Gold Standard anymore and the likelyhood of another Great Depression is even smaller.
That's not to say there will never be a financial/currency crisis in our country. The demand for our dollar seems to be slipping due to countries having more diversified foreign exchange reserves. Add to that, possibly huge budget deficits in the future due to SS and Medicare, people might not be so willing to by our debt in the future.
You might want to read up on the actual causes of the Great Depression. You seem to think it was a failure of the market. While it's true all of the speculation of the stock market wasn't exactly great, that by itself could never have caused the Depression. Actually looking at the rate the stock market rose, it doesn't look too different from the rates it rose in the '80s and '90s.
The problem was the Fed not lowering rates fast enough. When the economy started to recover the Fed raised rates by 1% (a huge jump) due to an outflow of gold to France which was building up gold reserves.
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