If you look at the current stimulus bill Obama, the tax plan is more "republican" than any of Bushes.

If you really want to look at the economic crises, Start and end with the IMF...they actually caused most of this. IMO Bushes economic policies were disastrous, but really not much different that the last 25 years. His problem, is he chose to surround himself with businessmen and not intellectuals and his inner circle gave him really bad advice. Then he only use 1 tool for each economic problem, tax cuts. Tax cuts aren't necessarily bad, but when you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. You need to use a lot at your disposal, but once Greenspan destroyed the bond market in 1997, he created the mortgage back securities market that was a major contributer to the problem we are in now. The profitability of the mortgage back securities in the late 90's through 2006 along with deregulation of credit swaps caused the exotic loans. (new loans had to be created to meet the appetite of the bond investors, supply and demand). Add in the brain-dead choice for SEC chair (Cox), removing the uptick rule and creation of the market maker exemption clause and we were ready for major financial meltdown. This caused a world wide economic meltdown do to choice made in the 1940s-1950's that shifted the U.S. (the main engine for the world economy) to move to a consumers economy from a manufacturing economy. So once the financial market crippled, it had a deeper impact since it destroyed our main piston in the engine, the consumer. We no longer had a strong manufacturing base to help soften the blow as we would have had in years past.

We are still making the same poor decision again, since it sounds nice to parties line. Look at C.A.F.E and the auto makers bailout discussions. Sure we need Americans to buy and produce more fuel efficient cars. But we shouldn't force the "U.S" Automakers to make cars the population doesn't want to buy. We should do what Denmark did and make gas $9 a gallon and create the demand for fuel efficient cars. Instead we tell the Auto makers that the must have a certain % of their cars meet MPG standards, and due to UAW contracts and the "Two-fleet" rule, you are forcing the automakers to sell these cars at a substantial loss just to compete with Korean car makers.
How many other countries force their companies to make and sell products at a loss? Politicians should of just told Ford/GM become a truck making company since its the only divisions that allow you to make a profit and still pay UAW wages, and if you want to enter the small car market, either buy them and rebadge them from an foreign company, wait until you can produce a car at UAW wages and still sell it for a profit (because demand is there), or produce it overseas and import them in.

Of course all of this is peanuts compare to the potential problems the IMF could cause.....

SGSD, v.nice

I mostly agree with the substance of your post. I think rational discussion along these lines is far too rare and we all suffer for it.

Energy is really the key problem in all of this, and we desperately need to begin transitioning to a post-oil economy. We'll have oil for a while longer, but most of the people reading this board will live to see a day when there isn't much left. Fusion is the answer, in the long term, and we need to start funding that research like the Manhattan Project imo.

I am definitely not a real greenee . . . I love performance cars as much as anyone. But it seems obvious we are going to be transitioning to an electrical economy over the next 75-100 years, and we should position ourselves as leaders in this technology.

YES!

The best thing about this issue, imo, is that everyone can agree on it. The greenies ("save the environment!!11"), the businesses ("keep US economy viable and in front"), as well as the terroristas ("stop American dependence on foreign oil").

The faster we get off oil, the fewer wars we will have to fight and the longer we will remain the central world economy.

This is my #1 hope for Obama, that he really follows through on his talk about energy.

Even fission sound good to me and we can do that pretty well NOW. Don't know why everyone hates on it so much.

Fun fact: Coal plants release more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear plants. Don't take my word for it: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=...-nuclear-waste

FYP. I agree with most of what you said, but the cars companies spent tons of money convincing consumers that what they need is a big new gas-guzzling SUV. It's a manufactured want, not a primal need.

I have two uncles that are Nuclear Engineers. They use to tell me fun facts like 1 cross country flight will give you more radiation than working 20 years in a reactor. Or that 1 ton granite give off more radiation than all nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Problem with fission is not the plants themselves in most cases . . . they are mostly well-designed and well-maintained. The problem is the waste and what to do with the plants when they reach end-of-life. Newer designs seem to deal with these problems better, but they are something of a constant with this sort of fuel cycle.

My real concern with all this is the Govt stepping in to "Fix" the problems that they helped create. Mostly because, try as they might, politics always creeps it's ugly head into the process.

Great analysis of the auto industry Sam.

Yeah, didn't say it's perfect

But the point is while we sit around nay-saying about the waste fission generates, countless coal plants are releasing radioactive waste into the atmosphere. Whereas although nuclear is going to generate waste, it's at least contained. We can just conquer Mexico and put it there. Right? Right???

I would also like to see more solar-thermal here in the Southwest. That stuff is cool.

For those of you who like good thriller stories about the workings of the equities markets, I recommend reading this article in the WSJ. Its about one man's efforts to expose the Madoff scandal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1233...ml?mod=testMod


What is really interesting it sounds IDENTICAL to the Overstock CEO efforts in exposing illegal trading. He did this movie about 3 years ago, and it rings so true today. its about 40 minutes. (free, no log in required)

http://deepcapturethemovie.com/

Don't want to **** up a good discussion, but for the people that are on the free training run for points:

I have played 9 hours today, playing 8 tables at 25NL, I am half way there

So for sure it's doable, but I understand why Cardrunners and stox can do this, the recreational players will never hit the points

"**** free markets, let's just not even bother pretending anymore."

Taxes should be for revenue generation, not social engineering. They especially should't be used for silly social engineering--such as concerns over global warming in a world where the global warming trend reversed in the late 90s.

lol

You're not one of those global warming deniers, are you?

lol
You're not one of those global warming believers, are you?

Global warming became a religion. Global climate is not a simple system nor static system and nobody, especially someone who isn't even a scientist *cough* Al Gore **cough cough** should speak with 100% confidence that it is a fact, while standing to profit greatly off the hysteria. I hate the guy so much yet respect him in a way for pulling off such a brilliant scam.

It really bothers me how oversimplified everything becomes, from global warming to taxes.

Sorry Kurt. Gotta vote with this.

laughing does not make you right:



[ ] global warming

Like it or not, temperatures have been falling since 1998. Now, you may be willing to ignore facts that get in the way of Goreism, but I remain at leat mildly interested in things like facts, average temperatures, data and all of that silly stuff.

But Gore was a former senator, why would he lie to the American public?

My geology professor spent a class and a half ripping apart the figures in Gore's movie and how its all presented out of context etc. etc.

Level?

http://www.newser.com/story/26381/go...nvestment.html

It's actually brilliant in a way. He becomes a venture capitalist for green technology and then drums up a giant market out of thin air.

Like I said, I hate the guy, but it was interesting to watch him snow the world - blatantly. And infuriating.

I just find it funny that someone who has done more actual good for the environment than every hippie reading this thread would take a quasi-religious illogical stance on this.

That's cool. It'll force me to have my ducks in a row on this one. I hope to counter hand-picked outliers with a preponderance of evidence. Wish me luck.

Oh, posted from my iPhone by the way. Woot!

I love a South Park episode where Al Gore wants to tell the world about the danger of BearManPig. Has anyone seen it?

Al Gore wears a cape and he makes wind noises whyle running with his arms up like he was Superman.

Funny as hell.

Edit: Actually, I think he warns about BearManPig in one episode and wears the cape in another one, but whatever.

Here it goes:

"hes 1/2 man, 1/2 bear, and 1/2 pig!"