# Democrats are not just like Republicans



## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414). 

This legislation will put an end to a host of deceptive and unjust credit card practices that impose additional financial hardship on consumers who are doing their best to stay afloat. 

This legislation seeks to put an end to unfair credit card practices that mire millions of American families in debt. The Dodd-Levin CARD Act results in part from an ongoing investigation into abusive credit card practices I initiated as the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In May 2007, in response to the abuses brought to light as a result of this investigation, I introduced the Stop Unfair Practices in Credit Cards Act (S.1395). I am pleased that nearly all of the provisions from S.1395 have been included in the CARD Act of 2009.

The landmark bill approved by the Banking Committee earlier this week would ban the most egregious credit card practices that are unfairly deepening or prolonging credit card debt for many consumers. Under this legislation, for example, credit card companies would be prohibited from applying higher interest rates retroactively to existing credit card debt, hiking interest rates on customers who pay on time, and collecting interest on credit card debts that were repaid on time. In addition, this bill would crack down on unreasonable fees, including repeated late fees, over-the-limit fees, and fees to pay your bill, and would prohibit charging interest on those fees. It would also prohibit so-called universal default interest rate hikes in which a credit card company hikes a cardholders interest rate for reasons unrelated to the account held with that company. It would also make sure that cardholders get their bills 21 days before the bill is due and give them until 5:00 p.m. on the due date to make a payment.

I have called on the full Senate to pass the Dodd-Levin CARD Act as soon as possible. At a time when working people are struggling, common sense credit card reform is essential to protect American families from unfair fees and interest charges. 

You can view both my press release on committee passage at []Technical difficulties. and my statement upon introduction of this bill at []Technical difficulties..
Sincerely,
Carl Levin


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?

Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

Hmm ... allowing them to or forcing them to ... the only difference I see is the wording.


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


> Hmm ... allowing them to or forcing them to ... the only difference I see is the wording.



What?  See, you right wingers can defend anything.  

This is just like when the GOP allowed mortgage companies to predatory lend, and you blamed the consumers.

Now I'm showing you that under the GOP, the credit card companies were allowed to basically turn themselves into loan sharks, and you don't see a problem with that?  This is exactly why they need to be regulated.  

Let me explain what this story should tell you, since you clearly can't comprehend it.

The GOP allowed the credit card companies to fuck us for 8 years!!!  All the shit this bill is going to fix, shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.  But the GOP thought it woudl be ok to let the credit card companies and bankers regulate themselves.

And they have done a great job, huh retard?  

The government's job is to protect us.  So yes, the Dems are going to FORCE THEM to stop.  

Why did the GOP allow this?  Because they work for the bankers and credit card companies.  Fuck the citizens.  

That's why we elected the Dems and thats why we kicked the GOP out of office.  One reason anyways.  

Yes, force.  Government sets the rules, not corporations.

You right wingers need to stop thinking that corporations are more important than people.  They are not.  And if they threaten to leave, they can sell their shit to the country they go to.

Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class


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## Annie (Apr 3, 2009)

KK right wing?


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## driveby (Apr 3, 2009)

Annie said:


> KK right wing?



Bozo's world, anyone that isn't a flaming left wing nut is right wing......


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

Annie said:


> KK right wing?



You have to love the partisan asshats huh?

Bobo, I am FAR from a right winger ... hell I don't like them any more. I don't justify anything, as a matter of fact I am an embarrassed Democrat supporter who just uses their brain for a change instead of pointing fingers where ever the great leaders say. I still see no difference between the two, now go back to your ass kissing or start thinking. Dems forced companies to make loans and offer credit to high risk borrowers ... fact is, no one is forced to take those loans or credit, so even then it's neither party to blame it's those idiots who live beyond their means and spend money they didn't have. Pointing fingers are parties doesn't help fix a damned thing.


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

driveby said:


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The GOP ALLOWED the credit card companies to turn themselves into shady loan sharks who cheat American consumers.

One very small example is moving the due dates around.  Before the GOP deregulated the CC industry, they weren't allowed to do that.

So now Americans are saying that they missed their due dates and the CC company jacked up their interest to 20%???  And not annual, but monthy!!!

And the the rates they charge now were not acceptable before Bush got into office. 

So what interest do you think a credit card company should be allowed to charge?  20% monthly?  40%?  50%?  

One difference between Dems and Republicans is I guarantee you the Dems will say a much lower number than the Reps will.


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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... and Democrats forced mortgage companies to give out loans to people who couldn't make the payments then pass the bill to the tax payers who weren't stupid enough to get credit ... your point?


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## editec (Apr 3, 2009)

Credit cards are a cancer on the body politic, folks.


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## AllieBaba (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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Do you ever post anything that remotely resembles the truth?

Please explain what, exactly, the right did to encourage or even allow predatory lending? Specifics please.


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

editec said:


> Credit cards are a cancer on the body politic, folks.



and who exactly put the gun to the heads of those who use and abuse credit cards?? doyathink?


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

WillowTree said:


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Um ... they picked them up themselves.


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## driveby (Apr 3, 2009)

Those damn "predatory" pre approved mailers ......


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## Skull Pilot (Apr 3, 2009)

editec said:


> Credit cards are a cancer on the body politic, folks.



only to those who don't understand them.

A credit card is the most useful tool to increase one's credit rating. But sheeple don't have the discipline to use that tool correctly.

And whose fault is that?

I say it's the fault of the individual.


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

Skull Pilot said:


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What you say is true ... except why would one need to improve their credit rating if one is smart enough to live within their means, and still enjoy such luxuries without credit?


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


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I have a different question.

These "individuals" that misused their credit existed long before this problem popped up.  In fact, Banks knew that such people existed.  

So, why did the Banks give credit to so many of these "individuals" in the first place? 

Before you make that lame excuse that the Government made them do it(I did not know Republicans were communists) , or Barney Franks and the Black Congressional Caucus threatened to march on them(If that *makes a bank throw money out the windows*, then we have a legal way to rob a bank)  Think about how your right wing ideas could go wrong.


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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Aaah ... this was the government forcing them to give credit to these high risk applicants actually, and it was done by Democrats. As for "my right wing ideas" ... seriously? This again? Republicans allowed banks to do what they want, which was wrong, but Democrats forced banks to make bad loans, which was wrong as well.


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## MaggieMae (Apr 3, 2009)

AllieBaba said:


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What they DID was nothing, nada, zip. They allowed one bill after another which would have better regulated their scams to get dropped.  America's big credit card companies have effectively inoculated themselves from any potential regulations by having friends in high places. And ironically, they "won" a huge fight (thank you lobbyists) by managing to get the new bankruptcy law passed which makes it even MORE difficult for people to get out from under the massive debt that they imposed.

Should people have been more careful? Of course, but don't forget, we've become a nation of greedy materialism where everyone has to have what the ones who can better afford it all have. And who knew that better than the credit card banks (many of whom aren't banks at all) who leeched off the ignorance of people.


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

By the way--the only time people demand regulations in the market place is when right wing ideologues refuse to look at the mess they cause.

Among conservatives, this is called "overreaching".  Apparently, conservatives "overreached" with their beliefs in deregulation and Economic/Social Darwinism.


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## driveby (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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Right, it was "predatory lending". 

Talk about lame......


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


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Will you right wingers stop showing us over and over again how fucking dumb you are.  Its getting god damn annoying.  I'm getting sick of explaining it to you.  Wake the fuck up!!!

Ready?  One more time.

The bankers bundled up all the fucking loans.  Did Jimmy Carter fucking know they were going to do that?  

Did Jimmy fucking carter know Bush was going to ruin the fucking economy by sending all the middle class jobs overseas?  

So why do you think so many fucking Americans lost their fucking jobs and homes?

And allowing the mortgage companies to predatory lend?  

Anyone would walk away from a home that is worth $100K but they owe $200k.

So if you really understood everything that went on the last 8 years, you would never say such a fuckign stupid thing like, "Democrats forced banks to give bad loans".

Are you suggesting that poor people crashed the global market?

And notice you idiot republicans never take the blame for anything.  If you do, its always when "everyone is responsible".

Is there ever a time in US history where the GOP all by themselves fucked up?

God I hate Republicans and their stupidity.  Seriously.  I would even be willing to go to war with you assholes and the loser gets to move to the fucking red states.  And you can do whatever you want to your citizens.  You want to send their jobs overseas?  You want to hire illegals to work in your factories?  

In 1 year you'll come crawling back begging us liberals to save you.


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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Sorry .. I can't get past your first sentence on this one ....


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


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Thats a very good question/point you just make.  

My conspiracy dvd's tell how the bankers came up with this scam.  

The more we go into debt, the more they "own" us.  

I can not stand the "credit rating" bullshit.  Isn't that a fancy way of charging us poor people more than they charge rich people?


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## Skull Pilot (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


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That's ok.  Anyone who thinks Jimmy Carter/Freddy/Fanny/Poor people are to blame is a fucking moron anyways so go read a fucking book.


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

Skull Pilot said:


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## Annie (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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"Bring It On!"  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ,, what doyathink the obamalama is gonna do about illegals???? Ya know the other day they busted some illegals a the job site... They didn't do anything except issue them work permits... And this is under the obamalama's watch...  god I love it when yer pissed..


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## tigerbob (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.



You are right, as far as the credit card companies engaging in what can only be called gouging over the past decade, and longer.  But this is not solely an American phenomenon.  These companies operate worldwide, and similar practices have been evident in other countries, many of which have been overseen by liberal, not conservative governments.

That said, restricting their ability to apply unwarranted punitive charges, penalize those who do not carry a balance and apply rate increases to existing balances is, IMO, absolutely the right thing to do.


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

WillowTree said:


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THE JOB SITE.  Is that what they call your cooter?  

I didn't know illegals needed a work permit to pleasure you.


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


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But--the Banks that are at the center of this mess stated on congressional record that no one forced them to make bad loans or ease credit restrictions.

This is the crux of the whole issue.  If the Banks were not forced(neither by Dems or Reps) and they claimed that they were not forced, how does the arguement that they were forced hold weight in reality?


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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Are all Democrats the PIG you are? Mercy you are a PIG!




*nobody listens to pigs pig!*


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## KittenKoder (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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Look at "minority mortgage policies" ... they were forced in a way, so yes, and that was a Dem policy. 

However, it's not the banks fault ultimately, not even the government's fault, it's the people who knew they couldn't afford them borrowing money anyway and never paying it back.


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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..


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


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Like I said--a legal way to rob a bank.

Now I have better questions than the last one!!

Are Banks unable to assess the risk of a loan?  You just got through stating that minority mortages policies are the problem, is their a reliable information that I can find provided online or, better yet, government report/study that concern this.  Finally, is the majority--or even significant amount of the credit crunch due to minority lending?


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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go to c-span.. watch all the videos of the committee and votes.. it's all right there.


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

WillowTree said:


> *nobody listens to pigs pig!*



Was this directed at  s.bobo?


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

amrchaos said:


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Bobo is the only pig I've met on this board..  I fixed it.. sorry I put it on the word response.


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

WillowTree said:


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So is the Testimony by the Banks and Treasury that the government did not force them to do any thing and that many of the propaganda surrounding minority lending was not even true.

The problem actually began when one of the "investors" of a security tried to get his money back on an investment, and the courts ruled against him because he did not hold the actual mortgage over the properties.  That is where the mortgage problem kicks in.

Now the other problem is the Credit crunch--in which the Banks have over extended credit and now are trying to retract and erase, mark down existing credit and so forth, and refusing to lend money by Cards.  This is the second problem and in reality it is only tied to mortgage crisis because of loose monetary policies practiced by the Banks.

If you let most people tell it to you, it would seem that the mortgage crisis led to the Credit crisis, but in fact the mortgage crisis is alot more self contained than the credit crisis because the money and loans used frommortgages are kept seperate from the those thate were used for financing credit.

In other words, we have two economic  problems, not just one.  In fact, many people askied the question directly--How does the mortgage problem affect the Credit and loan market in general.

 The answer was that the problem in the mortgage markets were too small to do the kind of mess we are seeing now.  So this need to relie on minority lending or "inappropriate borrowing" by individuals does not hold water.

Banks are hemorrhaging money all over their portfolio.  Not just in its mortgage/loan divisons.


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## edthecynic (Apr 3, 2009)

driveby said:


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*Is it still "Bozo's world" when LimpBoy does the same thing?????? LOL*

Ex-Pittsburgher Calls Town Racist
April 8, 2008
RUSH:  Any person or organization who is not conservative by definition will be a liberal.


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## edthecynic (Apr 3, 2009)

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*You can't pass Bush off as a Dem!!! 
Bush's Dec 2003 American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) is what changed the rules to allow no downpayment loans to people with bad credit for more than the house was worth and who were at least 20% below the standard for the neighborhood.*

American Dream Downpayment Initiative - Affordable Housing - CPD - HUD
American Dream Downpayment Initiative
Summary

The American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) was *signed into law on December 16, 2003.* The American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act authorizes up to $200 million annually for fiscal years 2004 - 2007. ADDI will provide funds to all fifty states and to local participating jurisdictions that have a population of at least 150,000 or will receive an allocation of at least $50,000 under the ADDI formula. ADDI will be administered as a part of the HOME              Investment Partnerships Program, a formula grant program.

Purpose

*ADDI aims to increase the homeownership rate, especially among lower              income and minority households*, and to revitalize and stabilize communities. ADDI will help first-time homebuyers with the biggest hurdle to homeownership: downpayment and closing costs. The program was created to assist low-income first-time homebuyers in purchasing single-family homes by providing funds for downpayment, closing costs, and rehabilitation carried out in conjunction with the assisted home purchase.

Type of Assistance

*ADDI will provide downpayment, closing costs, and rehabilitation assistance *             to eligible individuals. The amount of ADDI assistance provided may not exceed $10,000 or six percent of the purchase price of the home, whichever is greater. The rehabilitation must be completed within one year of the home purchase. Rehabilitation may include, but is not limited to, the reduction of lead paint hazards and the remediation of other home health hazards.

Eligible Customers

To be eligible for ADDI assistance, individuals must be first-time              homebuyers interested in purchasing single family housing. A first-time              homebuyer is defined as an individual and his or her spouse who have not owned a home during the three-year period prior to the purchase of a home with ADDI assistance. ADDI funds may be used to purchase one- to four- family housing, condominium unit, cooperative unit, or manufactured housing. Additionally,* individuals who qualify for ADDI assistance must have incomes not exceeding 80% of area median income.*

Eligible              Activities

*ADDI funds may be used for downpayment, closing costs and, if necessary,              rehabilitation in conjunction with home purchase.* ADDI funds used for rehabilitation may not exceed twenty percent of the participating              jurisdiction's total ADDI allocation. The rehabilitation assisted with ADDI funds must be completed within one year of the home purchase.          

Funding Status

In FY 2007, Congress appropriated $24,750,000 for ADDI. Previously,              Congress appropriated $74,513,000 in FY2003 and $86,984 in FY2004,              $49,600,000 in FY2005 and $24,750,000 in FY2006. HUD has issued formula              allocations for FY 2007 to assist participating jurisdictions in preparing their consolidated plans.

Obtaining Assistance

First, check the formula allocation page to determine whether your local HOME              administering agency received ADDI funding. If they did not receive ADDI funding, ADDI funds may be available through your state. Every state received ADDI funds. The contacts for state are available in the HOME administering agency list.















USATODAY.com - Bush seeks to increase minority homeownership

Bush seeks to increase minority homeownership
By Thomas A. Fogarty, USA TODAY

In a bid to boost minority homeownership, *President Bush will ask Congress for authority to eliminate the down-payment requirement for Federal Housing Administration loans.
*
In announcing the plan Monday at a home builders show in Las Vegas, Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher called the proposal the "most significant FHA initiative in more than a decade." It would lead to 150,000 first-time owners annually, he said.

Nothing-down options are available on the private mortgage market, but, in general, they require the borrower to have pristine credit. *Bush's proposed change would extend the nothing-down option to borrowers with blemished credit.*

The FHA isn't a direct lender, but guarantees loan payments for mortgages on moderately priced owner-occupied property. The FHA guarantee now permits private lenders to finance as much as 97% of the purchase price of a home for millions of low- and middle-income borrowers.

In the proposal soon to be delivered to Congress, *Bush would allow the FHA to guarantee loans for the full purchase price of the home, plus down-payment costs.* As a practical matter, the FHA would guarantee mortgages as high as 103% of the value of the underlying property.


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## amrchaos (Apr 3, 2009)

sealybobo said:


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One problem about this "more in debt, the more the banks own you"

It is just that--Far out conspiracy.

The Banks have a problem with collecting a debt--after a certain point in time, the banks must right it off as a lost.  During this time, they "sell" the debt to a collector that tries to reap as gather as much as possible from the debt.  Now, the collector does not actually pay anything up front when they "buy" the debt, in fact they are assigned a percentage to how much they will gain from what they collect.


Even with the collector, there is a time period in which the debt becomes totally uncollectible.  In the mean time, you credit score drops like a rock.

The point people really miss about banks is that Banks are the ultimate middle man in transactions.  Yes, they allow for speedy access to goods, but one has to ask the most troubling question of all when concerning banks.

WHAT IS THE TRUE VALUE OF THEIR SERVICE.

Usury laws were passed to help protect consumers.  But it also serves as an indirect protection for non-financial corporations that produce or sell goods for profit.  Why?
Because these businesses need paying customers, but if a customer is using up to much of his check to pay off a bank, then that money is not going to the REAL market--Industry. 

Now I can understand why Free marketers would love to protect Banks and praise them for the amount of profit they can generate, but really--do you really want to push the profit motif in a market sector that could stagnate the main part of our economy because of its nice Profit margins.  Do not forget about goods accessability by the Public. Excessive profits plus inability to distribute goods is the recipe for violent revolt.


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## sealybobo (Apr 3, 2009)

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You make me sick too.  

And you are probably a very nice woman in real life.  So are my conservative prick friends at work and at home. 

If we don't talk politics, they are fine.


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## Iriemon (Apr 3, 2009)

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I'd actually like to know how "Democrats forced banks to make bad loans" as you've claimed also.  I've heard this claim before.  So how specifically how did Democrats force banks to make bad loans?


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## WillowTree (Apr 3, 2009)

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*you are still a pig and will always be a pig. You can never get away from being a pig*


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## JimCo (Apr 4, 2009)

KittenKoder  ... and Democrats forced mortgage companies to give out loans to people who couldn't make the payments then pass the bill to the tax payers who weren't stupid enough to get credit ... your point? 

*Yea them mean old Dems forced those mortgage companies kicking and screaming to make all these bad loans and all their executives got was big fat bonuses!!*



 Feature ArticlesMalaysia UpdatesGeopolitical AnalysisCurrent AffairsMilitary / IntelligenceFinancial AnalysisAboutHome





FINANCIAL ANALYSIS



*At Washington Mutual, A Relentless Urge To Approve Any Loan* - By Peter S. Goodman and Gretchen Morgenson        
By Peter S. Goodman and Gretchen Morgenson     
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 02:13  

December 28, 2008 IHT



"We hope to do to this industry what Wal-Mart did to theirs, Starbucks did to theirs, Costco did to theirs and Lowe's-Home Depot did to their industry. And I think if we've done our job, five years from now you're not going to call us a bank."



- Kerry Killinger, chief executive of Washington Mutual, 2003 



As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling those of stockbrokers. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes.
Yet even by WaMu's relaxed standards, the mortgage on one home four years ago raised eyebrows. The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer.



Parsons could not verify the singer's income, so he had the applicant photographed in front of the home, dressed in his mariachi outfit. The photo went into a WaMu file. Approved.



"I'd lie if I said every piece of documentation was properly signed and dated," said Parsons, speaking through wire-reinforced glass at a California prison near here, where he is serving 16 months for theft after his fourth arrest - all involving drugs.



While Parsons, whose incarceration is not related to his work for WaMu, oversaw a team screening mortgage applications, he was snorting methamphetamine daily, he said.



"In our world, it was tolerated," said Sherri Zaback, who worked for Parsons and recalls seeing drug paraphernalia on his desk. "Everybody said, 'He gets the job done."'



At WaMu, getting the job done meant lending money to nearly anyone who asked for it - the force behind the bank's meteoric rise and its precipitous collapse this year in the biggest bank failure in American history.



In a financial landscape littered with wreckage, WaMu, a Seattle-based bank that opened branches at a clip worthy of a fast-food chain, stands out as a singularly brazen case of lax lending. By the first half of this year, the value of its bad loans had reached $11.5 billion, having nearly tripled from $4.2 billion a year earlier.



Interviews with two dozen former employees, mortgage brokers, real estate agents and appraisers show the relentless pressure to churn out loans that produced such results. While that sample may not fully represent a bank with tens of thousands of people, it does reflect the views of employees in WaMu mortgage operations in California, Florida, Illinois and Texas.



Their accounts are consistent with those of 89 other former employees who are confidential witnesses in a class action filed against WaMu in U.S. court in Seattle by former shareholders.



According to these accounts, pressure to keep lending emanated from the top, where executives profited from the swift expansion - not least, Kerry Killinger, who was WaMu's chief executive from 1990 until he was forced out in September.



Between 2001 and 2007, Killinger received compensation of $88 million, according to the Corporate Library, a research firm. He declined to respond to a list of questions, and his spokesman said he was unavailable for an interview.



During Killinger's tenure, WaMu pressed sales agents to pump out loans while disregarding borrowers' incomes and assets, according to former employees. The bank set up what insiders described as a system of dubious legality that enabled real estate agents to collect fees of more than $10,000 for bringing in borrowers, sometimes making the agents more beholden to WaMu than they were to their clients.



WaMu gave mortgage brokers handsome commissions for selling the riskiest loans, which carried higher fees, bolstering profits and ultimately the compensation of the bank's executives. WaMu pressed appraisers to provide inflated property values that made loans appear less risky, enabling Wall Street to bundle them more easily for sale to investors.



"It was the Wild West," said Steven Knobel, a founder of an appraisal company - Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson - that did business with WaMu until 2007. "If you were alive, they would give you a loan. Actually, I think if you were dead, they would still give you a loan."



JPMorgan Chase, which bought WaMu for $1.9 billion in September and received $25 billion a few weeks later as part of the taxpayer bailout of the financial services industry, declined to make former WaMu executives available for interviews.



JPMorgan also declined to comment on WaMu's operations before it bought the company. "It is a different era for our customers and for the company," a spokesman said.



For those who placed their faith and money in WaMu, the bank's implosion came as a shock.



"I never had a clue about the amount of off-the-cliff activity that was going on at Washington Mutual, and I was in constant contact with the company," said Vincent Au, president of Avalon Partners, an investment firm. "There were people at WaMu that orchestrated nothing more than a sham or charade. These people broke every fundamental rule of running a company."



'Like a sweatshop' 



Some WaMu employees who worked for the bank during the boom now have regrets.



"It was a disgrace," said Dana Zweibel, a former financial representative at a WaMu branch in Tampa, Florida. "We were giving loans to people that never should have had loans."



If Zweibel doubted whether customers could pay, supervisors directed her to keep selling, she said. "We were told from up above that that's not our concern," she said. "Our concern is just to write the loan."



The ultimate supervisor at WaMu was Killinger, who joined the company in 1983 and became chief executive in 1990. He inherited a bank that had been founded in 1889 and had survived the Depression and the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s.



An investment analyst by training, he was attuned to Wall Street's hunger for growth. Between late 1996 and early 2002, he transformed WaMu into the sixth-largest U.S. bank through a series of acquisitions.



A crucial deal came in 1999, with the purchase of Long Beach Financial, a California lender specializing in subprime mortgages - loans extended to borrowers with troubled credit.



WaMu underscored its eagerness to lend with an advertising campaign introduced during the 2003 Academy Awards:



"The Power of Yes." No mere advertising pitch, this was also the mantra inside the bank, underwriters said.



"WaMu came out with that slogan, and that was what we had to live by," Zaback said. "We joked about it a lot." A file would get marked problematic and then somehow get approved. "We'd say: 'O.K.! The power of yes."'



Revenue at WaMu's mortgage unit swelled from $707 million in 2002 to almost $2 billion the following year, when the "The Power of Yes" campaign started.



Between 2000 and 2003, the number of WaMu's retail branches grew 70 percent, reaching 2,200 across 38 states, as the bank used an image of cheeky irreverence to attract new customers. In offbeat television ads, casually dressed WaMu employees ridiculed staid bankers in suits.



Branches were pushed to increase lending. "It was just disgusting," said Zweibel, the Tampa representative. "They wanted you to spend time, while you're running teller transactions and opening checking accounts, selling people loans."



Employees in Tampa who fell short were ordered to drive to a WaMu office in Sarasota, an hour away. There, they sat in a phone bank with 20 other people, calling customers to push home equity loans.



"The regional manager would be over your shoulder, listening to every word," Zweibel recalled. "They treated us like we were in a sweatshop."



At the other end of the country, at WaMu's processing office in San Diego, Zaback's job was to take loan applications from branches in Southern California and make sure they passed muster. Most of the loans she said she handled required the borrower to provide only an address and a Social Security number and to state income and assets.



She ran applications through WaMu's computer system for approval. If she needed more information, she had to consult a loan officer, which she described as an unpleasant experience. "They would be furious," Zaback said. "They would put it on you, that they weren't going to get paid if you stood in the way."



On one loan application in 2005, a borrower identified himself as a gardener and listed his monthly income as $12,000, Zaback recalled. She could not verify his business license, so she took the file to her boss, Parsons.



He used the mariachi singer as inspiration: a photo of the borrower's truck emblazoned with the name of his landscaping business went into the file. Approved.



Parsons, who worked for WaMu in San Diego from about 2002 through 2005, said his supervisors constantly praised his performance. "My numbers were through the roof," he said.



On another occasion, Zaback asked a loan officer for verification of an applicant's assets. The officer sent a letter from a bank showing a balance of about $150,000 in the borrower's account, she recalled. But when Zaback called the bank to confirm, she was told the balance was only $5,000.



The loan officer yelled at her, Zaback recalled. "She said, 'We don't call the bank to verify."' Zaback said she had told Parsons that she no longer wanted to work with that loan officer, but he had replied: "Too bad."



Shortly thereafter, Parsons disappeared from the office. Zaback later learned of his arrest for burglary and drug possession.



The sheer workload at WaMu ensured that loan reviews were limited. Zaback's office had 108 people, and several hundred new files a day. She was required to process at least 10 files daily.



"I'd typically spend a maximum of 35 minutes per file," she said. "It was just disheartening. Just spit it out and get it done. That's what they wanted us to do. Garbage in, and garbage out."



Referral fees for loans 



WaMu's boiler room culture flourished in Southern California, where housing prices rose so rapidly during the bubble that creative financing was needed to attract buyers.



To that end, WaMu embraced so-called option ARMs - adjustable-rate mortgages that enticed borrowers with a selection of low initial rates and allowed them to decide how much to pay each month. But people who chose minimum payments were underpaying the interest due and adding to their principal, eventually causing loan payments to balloon.



Customers were often left with the impression that low payments would continue long term, according to former WaMu sales agents.



For WaMu, variable-rate loans - option adjustable-rate mortgages, in particular - were especially attractive because they carried higher fees than other loans and allowed WaMu to book profits on interest payments that borrowers deferred. Because WaMu was selling many of its loans to investors, it did not worry about defaults: by the time loans went bad, they were often in other hands.



WaMu's adjustable-rate mortgages expanded from about one-fourth of new home loans in 2003 to 70 percent by 2006. In 2005 and 2006 - when WaMu pushed option adjustable-rate mortgages most aggressively - Killinger received pay of $19 million and $24 million respectively.



The ARM loan niche 



WaMu's retail mortgage office in Downey, California, specialized in selling option ARMs to Latino customers who spoke little English and depended on advice from real estate brokers, according to a former sales agent who requested anonymity because he was still in the mortgage business.



According to that agent, WaMu turned real estate agents into a pipeline for loan applications by giving them "referral fees" for clients who became WaMu borrowers.



Buyers were typically oblivious to agents' fees, the agent said, and agents rarely explained the loan terms.



"Their realtor was their trusted friend," the agent said. "The realtors would sell them on a minimum payment, and that was an outright lie."



According to the agent, the strategy was the brainchild of Thomas Ramirez, who oversaw a sales team of about 20 agents at the Downey branch during the first half of this decade, and now works for Wells Fargo.



Ramirez confirmed that he and his team had allowed real estate agents to collect commissions, but he maintained that the fees had been fully disclosed.



"I don't think the bank would have let us do the program if it was bad," Ramirez said.



Ramirez's team sold nearly $1 billion worth of loans in 2004, he said. His performance made him a perennial member of WaMu's President's Club, which brought big bonuses and recognition at an awards ceremony for which Killinger typically was host at warm-weather locations like Hawaii.



Ramirez's success prompted WaMu to populate a neighboring building in Downey with loan processors, underwriters and appraisers who worked for him. The fees proved so enticing that real estate agents arrived in Downey from all over Southern California, bearing six and seven loan applications at a time, the former agent said.



WaMu banned referral fees in 2006, fearing they could be construed as illegal payments from the bank to agents. But the bank allowed Ramirez's team to continue using the referral fees, the agent said.



Forced out with millions 



By 2005, the word was out that WaMu would accept applications with a mere statement of the borrower's income and assets - often with no documentation required - as long as credit scores were adequate, according to Zaback and other underwriters.



"We had a flier that said, 'A thin file is a good file,"' recalled Michele Culbertson, a wholesale sales agent with WaMu.



Martine Lado, an agent in the Irvine, California, office, said she had coached brokers to leave parts of applications blank to avoid prompting verification if the borrower's job or income was sketchy.



"We were looking for people who understood how to do loans at WaMu," Lado said.



Top producers became heroes. Craig Clark, called the "king of the option ARM" by colleagues, closed loans totaling about $1 billion in 2005, according to four of his former coworkers, a tally he amassed in part by challenging anyone who doubted him.



"He was a bulldozer when it came to getting his stuff done," said Lisa Alvarez, who worked in the Irvine office from 2003 to 2006.



Christine Crocker, who managed WaMu's wholesale underwriting division in Irvine, recalled one mortgage to an elderly couple from a broker on Clark's team.



With a fixed income of about $3,200 a month, the couple needed a fixed-rate loan. But their broker earned a commission of three percentage points by arranging an option ARM for them, and did so by listing their income as $7,000 a month. Soon, their payment jumped from about $1,000 a month to about $3,000, and they fell behind.



Clark, who now works for JPMorgan, referred calls to a company spokesman, who provided no further details.



In 2006, WaMu slowed the use of option adjustable-rate mortgages. But earlier, ill-considered loans had already begun hurting its results. In 2007, it recorded a $67 million loss and shut down its subprime lending unit.



By the time shareholders joined WaMu for its annual meeting in Seattle last April, WaMu had posted a first-quarter loss of $1.14 billion and increased its loan loss reserve to $3.5 billion. Its stock had lost more than half its value in the previous two months. Anger was in the air.



Some shareholders were irate that Killinger and other executives were excluding mortgage losses from the computation of their bonuses. Others were enraged that WaMu had turned down an $8-a-share takeover bid from JPMorgan.



"Calm down and have a little faith," Killinger told the crowd. "We will get through this."



WaMu asked shareholders to approve a $7 billion investment by Texas Pacific Group, a private equity firm, and other unnamed investors. David Bonderman, a founder of Texas Pacific and a former WaMu director, declined to comment.



Hostile shareholders argued that the deal would dilute their holdings, but Killinger forced it through, saying WaMu desperately needed new capital.



Weeks later, with WaMu in tatters, directors stripped Killinger of his board chairmanship. And the bank began including mortgage losses when calculating executive bonuses.



In September, Killinger was forced to retire. Later that month, with WaMu buckling under about $180 billion in mortgage-related loans, regulators seized the bank and sold it to JPMorgan for $1.9 billion, a fraction of the $40 billion valuation the stock market had given WaMu at its peak.



Billions that investors had plowed into WaMu were wiped out, as were prospects for many of the bank's 50,000 employees. But Killinger still had his millions, rankling laid-off workers and shareholders alike.



"Kerry has made over $100 million over his tenure based on the aggressiveness that sunk the company," said Au, the money manager. "How does he justify taking that money?"



In June, Au sent an e-mail message to the company, asking executives to return some of their pay. He says he has not heard back. 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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## KittenKoder (Apr 4, 2009)

*yawn* You are still avoiding the blame of those who really caused the problem ... the morons who took the damned loans.


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## elvis (Apr 4, 2009)

KittenKoder said:


> *yawn* You are still avoiding the blame of those who really caused the problem ... the morons who took the damned loans.



I can't believe you wasted your time reading that damned thing. You'd think pubicus was writing it.


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## eots (Apr 4, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414).
> 
> This legislation will put an end to a host of deceptive and unjust credit card practices that impose additional financial hardship on consumers who are doing their best to stay afloat.
> 
> ...



Dude..snap out of it...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw]YouTube - The Obama Deception HQ Full length version[/ame]


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## eots (Apr 4, 2009)

One Nation Under Siege Seige Full Movie High Quality


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## elvis (Apr 4, 2009)

rosieoats is going to try to "hijack" another thread.


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## Harry Dresden (Apr 9, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> THE JOB SITE.  Is that what they call your cooter?
> 
> I didn't know illegals needed a work permit to pleasure you.



Bobo....you have your head so far up the Far Lefts collective ass,that you probably know who had corn last night.....did you happen to see Truth Matters in there?....he is another one....


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## Harry Dresden (Apr 9, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> WillowTree said:
> 
> 
> > amrchaos said:
> ...


sounds like some fucking libs i know.....


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## Shadow (Apr 9, 2009)

elvis3577 said:


> KittenKoder said:
> 
> 
> > *yawn* You are still avoiding the blame of those who really caused the problem ... the morons who took the damned loans.
> ...



I see the noobs have mad copy and paste skillz...Grrrrrrrr8.


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## frazzledgear (Apr 20, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> KittenKoder said:
> 
> 
> > Hmm ... allowing them to or forcing them to ... the only difference I see is the wording.
> ...



I would imagine that your inability to think for yourself is a major handicap in other areas of your life as well.  Undoubtedly you are a product of our public school system.  But how about you stop repeating lying ass propaganda, ok?  Only other liberals are buying it anyway -not anyone with any critical thinking skills and willing to take the time to find the full facts for themselves though.    

I'm sorry but it wasn't Republicans who pressured banks to make high risk loans to people who normally would never have qualified.  Banks didn't WANT to be making these high risk loans either -they all knew it was bad business.  They had to be forced to do so -and government did just that.  Seriously -why would Republicans even think getting poor people in over their heads into debt they couldn't repay was a good thing anyway?  Think that was on any Republican agenda?  LOL  Democrats thought it was a good idea in the belief that it would be HELPING the poor if they were handed a house they had put no money into and made no down payment on -and just getting that house would somehow MAGICALLY result in them paying back loans they couldn't afford in the first place.  Oh come on -that has DEMOCRAT written all over it and you know it.   

You sound as if this all occurred AND reached crisis stage in just a few years!  But ONLY those few years where Republicans controlled Congress of course, right?  LOL  Any idea how long it REALLY takes before high risk loans would reach a critical percentage of a bank's assets when the vast and overwhelming majority of the loans they make every year are NOT high risk?  Clearly you haven't a clue when this started and the real roots of it.  You only know when it reached crisis stage and finally came to the public's attention - and have decided Democrat politicians intent on saving their asses by blaming the opposite party are the real "truth tellers" here and giving you the "full facts" and no reason to even think about this one, just keep saying "it was REPUBLICANS' fault!"  LOL  You do realize that you  are the epitome of the "useful idiot" as defined in the communist manifesto, right?  You do it well too.  I must have missed it when Democrats, upon getting control of both houses of Congress in 2006 -did something ANYTHING to try and head this off.  

And apparently YOU missed it when Bush repeatedly urged Congress to address this problem and tighten regulations BEFORE a crisis occurred.  And missed it when Bush got a bill sponsored that would have created a regulatory body to specifically address this problem only to have Democrats kill it in committee?  Must have also missed it when Franks said there was no impending financial crisis and that government needed to pressure banks to make MORE of these high risk loans?  Guess that means you also missed it when McCain sponsored a bill and stood on the floor of the Senate URGING the Democrat controlled Congress to take action before it was too late -only to have Democrats vote down his bill?  Instead you show up here with your babble about those "evil" Republicans because .....Democrats said so and claim those are the "full facts"?  Pretty pathetic you know.   Omitting certain facts in order to manipulate people to believe something false, something they would not believe if they knew those facts - is a form of LYING.  Democrats lied big time on this one and you are the chump here Sealybobo, sorry. 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs[/ame]  See if you can actually follow who from which party is saying what.  This one makes your mindless babble about Republicans just pathetic and the uniformed drivel it is.  [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM[/ame]  [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxMInSfanqg&NR=1[/ame]

You want to know who to really blame -then make sure you know who actually had their hands in this first, the role they all played -and WHY.  This started under Clinton when Democrats controlled Congress and thought forcing banks into making high risk loans to people who would otherwise never get a loan was a desirable thing.  Oh sure, destroying whatever credit the poor had when they defaulted on these loans was a great way to help them, right?  Democrats didn't consider the consequences of the high default rate such a practice would involve -because they stupidly believed they were HELPING THE POOR and since that was so NOBLE, it must be a really wonderful idea!  This policy wasn't changed when Republicans controlled Congress because they didn't want to take the political hit Democrats would launch insisting it somehow "proved" Republicans hated the poor and wanted to keep them poor.  And once Democrats regained control of Congress, they not only refused to do anything about it, Democrats VIGOROUSLY defended it in response to the growing and increasing calls that a major crisis was rapidly approaching!  If you think otherwise, go back and watch those videos of Democrats defending this and insisting there was no growing crisis at all!  A high percentage of these people had been defaulting on these loans all along -but the percentage of the banks' assets these bad loans represented had gotten to the point where the rate of defaults could cause the entire collapse of the institution.  It is a FACT that it was Democrats who tried to use the Congressional Finance and Banking committees -which have regulatory oversight of the banks -for their SOCIAL ENGINEERING experiment!  And a fact that Republicans refused to stop it for fear of taking a political hit from Democrats turning it into a "hate the poor" bullshit.   One party of arrogant elitists who think the proper use of government is to force private businesses into bad business practices for their social engineering experiments and another party of pusillanimous wimps unwilling to stand up and do the right thing because it might come with a political cost to them personally.  Both parties screwed over the entire country and we should toss the entire lot out.    

And let's get real here, ok?  These people who are defaulting on their loans are NOT victims of anyone here except possibly their own greed.  This one isn't rocket science -a person of normal intelligence would instantly understand what they were being offered here.   They were handed a house they paid nothing for -no down payment was made like everyone else has to do, not a single penny of their own was at risk here.  If they paid the loan for that house, it would be theirs -if not and they defaulted on it, then they lost NOTHING because not one cent of their own money was tied up in it.  Who wouldn't take that?  Its a win-win situation for people who would normally never get a loan in the first place.  It is NOT my problem or anyone else's problem that some were just too greedy and used the opportunity to choose houses way above their means and ones they already knew they could never pay for anyway.   I'm not losing any sleep over the fact that some of them defaulted on their loans and are losing a house they didn't put one cent of their own money into anyway, sorry.   


Try to remember this truism.  Whatever government touches, it screws up.  This is a truism because it is TRUE.  It doesn't matter which party is in power, it doesn't matter how "noble" sounding those politicians' goals may be -this doesn't change.  In fact, the more "noble" sounding the goals, the bigger the screw ups tend to be.  If you think government knows far better how to run banks or any other business and believe a bunch of arrogant, elitist lawyers who could never get a real job can do a better job at making the major business decisions - try to remember the truth here.  *GOVERNMENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED HERE!*  Not a political party but GOVERNMENT itself and regardless of which party was in power.  And now Obama wants government to have far more control in making those decisions!  Obama intends to turn those TARP loans into shares of stock, making government the largest shareholder in many of these banks.  Which comes with the power to call the shots for all sorts of business decisions and means all loans and all financial business decisions of these banks will be made by government -and be a POLITICAL DECISION, not a business one.  After seeing how well they screwed up with these high risk loans, it somehow increased your confidence in government being far more qualified to make these business decisions?  LOL  What a sap you truly are then -because you must believe that Democrats will always be the ones wielding that power and turning those banking decisions into political ones, right?  ROFLMAO  I'd rather neither side have the ability to run our banks in accordance with their politics.  Which is why I'm a conservative and you are a short-sighted moron.


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## sealybobo (Apr 20, 2009)

frazzledgear said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > KittenKoder said:
> ...



bLABLABLA.

I graduated with a bunch of right wing assholes, so don't blame public schools.

Chances are, you were brainwashed by your father.

Or, they say we are born with either a conservative or liberal gene in our bodies.  In other words, you may have been born a stupid asshole.

Now if you are rich, then you are just greedy.

But if you are not rich, then you are dumb as a fucking bag of rocks.

Just look who the unions endorse every election.  Why don't you try to convince them that the GOP is the better party for them?  You don't think the GOP has tried?

So I didn't read whatever you posted, but I'm sure I can guess what it shows.  It shows that Domocrats work with Corporations too.  Is that about right?  Corporations send lobbyists to buy off Democrats, just like they do Republicans.  Is that it in a nutshell?

Well at least the Democrats give a dog a bone every once in awhile.

But no, black people, unions and I are not born Democrats.  In fact, Republicans used to have the black vote until the Mississippi Flood.  It was Katrina but back in the 1920's.  Anyways, the GOP lost the black vote.   And I don't know when the GOP ever had labor's vote.  And I liked Reagan.  So whatever your party did from Bush 1 to now, is why I think you and your party are anti American.  Fuck you.


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## sealybobo (Apr 20, 2009)

Democrats MUST work with Corporations and the rich while also working for the poor/middle class/labor/unions.

The GOP has the luxury of being able to say FUCK YOU to the middle class, because they got all the wedge issues.

How many broke ass Americans vote GOP because they are 

Racist, Ignorant, pro guns, hate gays, care about abortion.  

Many broke ass Americans are social conservatives.  I don't care how much I am against abortion.  It would never get me to vote against my own self interests.

For example, ENRON.  The GOP's deregulations led to the Enron scandal.  And you guys don't think that the Enron thing has anything to do with what's going on today?  Its all connected.  Anyways, think about all the dumb fucking enron employees who voted for Bush because they care about someone else getting an abortion, and they fucking lost their life savings.  HA fucking HA to those stupid cock suckers!!!


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## elvis (Apr 20, 2009)

the douchebag speaks again.


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## sealybobo (Apr 22, 2009)

elvis3577 said:


> the douchebag speaks again.



When the Bush-Cheney Administration drastically cut federal resources for the investigation of white-collar crime, they invited a new era of Wall Street rule-breaking and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

We must give federal law enforcers the resources they need to prosecute and punish the mortgage and corporate fraudsters that have so severely undermined our economy and hurt so many hard-working people.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, a bill I introduced and is being debated on the floor of the Senate this week, will do just that.

Click here to email your Members of Congress, urging them to support the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act and give federal law enforcers the resources they need to take a bite out of white-collar crime.

The past administration removed more than 2,000 FBI agents from white-collar crime investigations. Thousands of fraud allegations have gone unexamined, paving the way for excessive greed and depriving taxpayers of millions of dollars in fines and recoveries.

While the Bush-Cheney Justice Department devoted precious resources to produce secret legal memos that skirted the Constitution, it turned a blind eye to financial fraudsters as they skirted federal law. 

We must rebuild our nation's capacity to investigate and prosecute financial fraud.


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## elvis (Apr 22, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> elvis3577 said:
> 
> 
> > the douchebag speaks again.
> ...



remind us again, you daft ****, when did Rahm Emanuel and Chris Dodd become republicans?


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## sealybobo (Apr 22, 2009)

Harry Dresden said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > THE JOB SITE.  Is that what they call your cooter?
> ...



I told you stupid Republicans that the GOP is responsible for the economic mess we are in.  You wanted to blame Carter & Clinton & Reed for some very lame reasons, such as Freddy Mack.  Sure Freddy foreclosures played a part in the economy collapsing, but it isn't the reason the economy collapsed.  Republican policies are the cause.  

How insane you must be to focus on things done in the 80's and 90's but then you ignore all the shit the GOP did from 2000-2006 to PURPOSELY fuck the American labor class and to help Wallstreet, the Bankers and Corporations rip us off, renig on our pensions, send jobs overseas, remove regulations that would prevent pradatory lend, cooking the books, inflate home values, etc.  

So just like with torture, the Dems are now going to look into exactly how we got in this financial mess.  Just like Cheney won't shut up about Obama making us less safe, you guys keep talking shit about how "everyone has to share in the blame".  Tell you what.  How about we launch an investigation to see exactly what happened?  Sound good?

When the Bush-Cheney Administration drastically cut federal resources for the investigation of white-collar crime, they invited a new era of Wall Street rule-breaking and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

We must give federal law enforcers the resources they need to prosecute and punish the mortgage and corporate fraudsters that have so severely undermined our economy and hurt so many hard-working people.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, a bill I introduced and is being debated on the floor of the Senate this week, will do just that.

Click here to email your Members of Congress, urging them to support the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act and give federal law enforcers the resources they need to take a bite out of white-collar crime.

The past administration removed more than 2,000 FBI agents from white-collar crime investigations. Thousands of fraud allegations have gone unexamined, paving the way for excessive greed and depriving taxpayers of millions of dollars in fines and recoveries.

While the Bush-Cheney Justice Department devoted precious resources to produce secret legal memos that skirted the Constitution, it turned a blind eye to financial fraudsters as they skirted federal law. 

We must rebuild our nation's capacity to investigate and prosecute financial fraud.

Forward an email to your Members of Congress and urge them to support my Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act now.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act takes solid steps to combat the growing wave of fraud. Specifically, my legislation:

Authorizes an additional $245 million a year to hire hundreds of federal investigators, prosecutors, and staff to fight fraud,

Fills in statutory gaps to account for modern types of fraud and correct erroneous court decisions,

Updates the definition of "financial institution" in federal fraud statutes to include all mortgage lending businesses, and

Protects federal recovery funding from fraudulent use.
If enacted, this legislation will more than pay for itself by returning the proceeds of fraud to its victims and to taxpayers.

It is important to note that top law enforcement coalitions and anti-fraud experts support this common sense legislation. After all, our national recovery depends on their ability to hold white-collar criminals accountable and enforce federal fraud regulations moving forward.  And the Obama Administration has indicated that they support my bill too.

We just need Congress to act.

Please urge your Members of Congress to stand with law enforcement and support the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act.

As we look for ways to prevent another financial crisis, we must ensure any new regulations -- and those already on the books -- are adequately enforced.  Please contact your Members of Congress today and urge them to support our critical anti-fraud legislation.


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## user_name_guest (Apr 22, 2009)

A person who blindly supports the Democrats is as wrong as a person who blindly supports the Republicans.  You people should be ashamed of yourself.  


Sealybobo is to the Democratic party as a Bostonian is to the Boston Red Sox.  They love their party/team.  They will blindly agree with everything they say.   They will believe the problem is the rivals or opposition.  In this case, the Republican party or the New York Yankees.  They will think all of the wrong is with the Republicans and the New York Yankees.  They will hate them for everything and blame every single issue on them.  The rich gets richer because the rich are smarter than the poor.  But because you are a democrat you must believe that the rich gets richer because of the republicans.  Or because franchises like the New York Yankees spend over $200 million in salaries per year. It is fact that the majority of the rich earn their money because they use their brains.   Smart teams in professional franchises in the NFL perform better because they are smart.  The smart teams (New England Patroits) are always better than the dumb teams (Detroit Lions).  The people who go to Washington use it to receive their wealth.  It doesn't matter what party.  They use government to advance their interest.


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## Sinatra (Apr 22, 2009)

user_name_guest said:


> A person who blindly supports the Democrats is as wrong as a person who blindly supports the Republicans.  You people should be ashamed of yourself.
> 
> 
> Sealybobo is to the Democratic party as a Bostonian is to the Boston Red Sox.  They love their party/team.  They will blindly agree with everything they say.   They will believe the problem is the rivals or opposition.  In this case, the Republican party or the New York Yankees.  They will think all of the wrong is with the Republicans and the New York Yankees.  They will hate them for everything and blame every single issue on them.  The rich gets richer because the rich are smarter than the poor.  But because you are a democrat you must believe that the rich gets richer because the republicans.  Or because franchises like the New York Yankees spend over $200 million in salaries per year. It is fact that the majority of the rich earn their money because they use their brains.   Smart teams in professional franchises in the NFL perform better because they are smart.  The smart teams (New England Patroits) are always better than the dumb teams (Detroit Lions).  The people who go to Washington use it to receive their wealth.  It doesn't matter what party.  They use government to advance their interest.



Well said.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 22, 2009)

user_name_guest said:


> A person who blindly supports the Democrats is as wrong as a person who blindly supports the Republicans.  You people should be ashamed of yourself.
> 
> 
> Sealybobo is to the Democratic party as a Bostonian is to the Boston Red Sox.  They love their party/team.  They will blindly agree with everything they say.   They will believe the problem is the rivals or opposition.  In this case, the Republican party or the New York Yankees.  They will think all of the wrong is with the Republicans and the New York Yankees.  They will hate them for everything and blame every single issue on them.  The rich gets richer because the rich are smarter than the poor.  But because you are a democrat you must believe that the rich gets richer because of the republicans.  Or because franchises like the New York Yankees spend over $200 million in salaries per year. It is fact that the majority of the rich earn their money because they use their brains.   Smart teams in professional franchises in the NFL perform better because they are smart.  The smart teams (New England Patroits) are always better than the dumb teams (Detroit Lions).  The people who go to Washington use it to receive their wealth.  It doesn't matter what party.  They use government to advance their interest.



That's not true.  But I am not going to apologize for being a Democrat.  The GOP made LIBERAL a dirty word and a lot of people did not endorse the Democrats in 2000 and George Bush won because of that.  SO FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO SHUT UP, or stop pointing out just how huge the differences are between the parties.  

But I don't mind you pointing out the similarities.  When I agree, I call and complain to the Democrats that they are acting too much like Republicans. 

And you say I'll defend the Dems no matter what?  That has yet to be seen.  So far they've done a pretty good job.  They haven't passed any legislation that will cause the next financial meltdown like the GOP did, have they?  

But I also won't change parties unless the Republicans pull a 180,. and start practicing what they preach.

And I've told you guys a million times, I'm more anti GOP than I am pro Democratic.  

And you or anyone else who doesn't realize yet that the GOP is the party for corporatins and the Dems are the party for labor, are fools.    

Sorry, but that is a fact.  Just as any labor union in the country.

Do you think they blindly support the Dems?  

But they are like me.  If the dems piss them off, then they won't support anyone.  But they just won't ever support the GOP, because there is nothing there for them in the GOP.

Is that untrue?  

Maybe if the GOP did what they say they do then we might have a reason to vote for them.  But I have been watching the GOP since Bush 1 was in office and I don't like their policies.  

The only time the Dems suck is when they are acting like Republicans.  

Did the GOP do anything in the last 8 years to give me reason to vote for them?  

No they did not.  So I'm pinning my hopes on the Dems.  If they deliver as much as Clinton did, I'll be happy.  

And I don't blindly vote for anyone.  

Let me ask you.  Who did you vote for in 2000?  If you voted for Bush because of his record in Texas, then you my friend are the one that blindly votes for people.  If you knew all the facts, you'd know that he didn't have DICK to do with anything that happened in Texas.  Bush was nothing but a figurehead.  Read or watch Bush's brain. 

PS.  Show me a fucking conservative that voted for Kerry, or Clinton, or Obama.

Why don't you accuse them of blindly following a party?  Because the GOP did not have a good 8 years.  We all knew they sucked in 2004.  So why did Bush win a second term?  Because enough voters are dumb as fuck.

So when the people I vote for suck as bad as the GOP and you see me defending them, let me know.


----------



## DiveCon (Apr 22, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> user_name_guest said:
> 
> 
> > A person who blindly supports the Democrats is as wrong as a person who blindly supports the Republicans.  You people should be ashamed of yourself.
> ...


we dont want you to shut up bobo, you expose liberal to what you really are, a fucking moron


----------



## Gunny (Apr 24, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414).
> 
> This legislation will put an end to a host of deceptive and unjust credit card practices that impose additional financial hardship on consumers who are doing their best to stay afloat.
> 
> ...





sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.



Because consumers can't read nor comprehend what they're signing up for, right?  They need Big Brother to punish the bad old banks for loaning money under the terms of agreement BOTH parties agreed to.

Just more dodging responsibility from the left.  Nothing new here.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 24, 2009)

Gunny said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414).
> ...



Of course you don't see the difference.  So Democrats reign in the credit card companies, clearly looking out for the citizens, and Republicans turn a blind eye and allow credit card companies to gouge/predatory lend/scam the citizens of this country, and you don't see the difference.

You may not be a Republican  but you sure aren't a Democrat, that's for sure.



Each time the Democrats do something good or undoes something bad that the GOP did when they were in charge, I'll be sure to let you know.  You and Editec, because he/she doesn't think there is a difference either.  And independants are just dummies who can't make up their minds.  

Here's what I think about independants.  I think they like the conservative message but realize the Republicans are full of shit.  And they don't want to be labeled as liberals but they know we are right.  

Anyways, I look forward to your defense of Dick Cheney & George Bush.  I already know your position on whether we should go after them or not.  And I already know all the talking points.

PS.  Keith Olbermann just uncovered that the Bush team was torturing before torture was approved.  So much for trying to take Pelosi down with you.  Plus, the briefings Congress got were watered down.  But I do love how the GOP has a theme of "everyone has to share the blame".  They did that on the economy crashing, and Dems are launching an investigation on that too, and now everyone has to share blame for Cheney torturing people.  Fuck that.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 24, 2009)

DiveCon said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > user_name_guest said:
> ...



I've turned out to be right about almost everything.  Spying, torture, habius corpus, rendition, wiretapping, who's responsible for the crash of the economy, the wars, 

And I go out on a limb.  For example, to suggest Cheney sent the anthrax.  I bet that shit comes out.  Just remember I told you so if it does end up being true.  

Or that they did let 9-11 happen so they could use it to start the war.  They planned the war back in the 90's and said they would need a "pearl harbor type incident" to happen in order to launch their agenda, and they got it.  And all the connections with Bush and the Bin Ladin familiies?  All coincidence?  And the CIA even warned Bush?  And Condi & Cheney & Rumsfeld & Powell all lied?  How much evidence do you need?

Oh, PS.  We also know that they lied about torture working.  All the information they brag about getting from torture, they got without torture.  

But you don't care how many lies they get caught in.  You just keep on defending them.


----------



## DiveCon (Apr 24, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> DiveCon said:
> 
> 
> > sealybobo said:
> ...


only in your own little peabrain have you been right about anything


----------



## elvis (Apr 24, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> user_name_guest said:
> 
> 
> > A person who blindly supports the Democrats is as wrong as a person who blindly supports the Republicans.  You people should be ashamed of yourself.
> ...



Monica Lewinsky is using at least three screen names on this board.  I didn't think Gunny allowed that.


----------



## edthecynic (Apr 24, 2009)

Gunny said:


> Because consumers can't read nor comprehend what they're signing up for, right?  They need Big Brother to punish the bad old banks for loaning money under the terms of agreement BOTH parties agreed to.
> 
> Just more dodging responsibility from the left.  Nothing new here.



Just more trying to pass off the extreme right wing CON$ervative Republican, George W Bush, as a Liberal. Nothing new here.



> For Immediate Release
> Office of the Press Secretary
> October 15, 2002
> 
> ...


----------



## Xenophon (Apr 24, 2009)

Yes, they are.


----------



## oreo (Apr 24, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> KittenKoder said:
> 
> 
> > Hmm ... allowing them to or forcing them to ... the only difference I see is the wording.
> ...




First of all KITTEN--you stated "Democracy--Not "The Free Market"--Will save America's Middle Class".   Democracy cannot exist without free markets, & free markets cannot exist without a democracy.  They are one into each other.  Frankly, I am surprised you don't know that.  

I still blame irresponsible homeowners who took advantage of Barney Franks & Criss Dodd policies & bought a 600,000 dollar home when they could only afford a 100,000 home.  They knowingly took advantage of a very lack banking system, knowing full well, that mortgage interest rates could go up.  It was government policy that deregulated the mortgage banking industry back in the 1990's to where risky homebuyers were allowed to buy homes they could not afford. Co-signed by us, the American taxpayer for guaranteed payment.

For proof of this--you can go to:

New York Times:
Date:  Sept. 30, 1999
Titled:  Fannie Mae reduces credit requirements to aid mortgage lending.

Fannie/Freddie are ground zero of this economic collapse.  You might also want to put on your thinking glasses & read another article in the Rolling Stone magazine--regarding AIG & exactly what happened there.  I believe this article is in this months or last months issue.

While credit cards have been at it for some time.  It is just a drop in the bucket, in fact it is _miniscule_ in relation to this global economic collapse.  To add, credit cards are not guaranteed by the American taxpayer.

*Frankly it is kind of like shutting the barn doors after the cows got out.*

"Government is not the solution, it's the problem"  Ronald Reagan


----------



## Kevin_Kennedy (Apr 25, 2009)

A genuine free market is not dependent on any government, be it a democracy or dictatorship.


----------



## mash107 (Apr 25, 2009)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> A genuine free market is not dependent on any government, be it a democracy or dictatorship.



Yes, but a free market undermines dictatorships. A dictator isn't very strong when he can't print money to trample the rights of his people. Free markets yields freedom. Regulations, as sealy encourages, in markets yields fascism. Look at the fascism that's permeating its way through our economic system, today. Make poor people suffer by giving $800B to failed banks. The little guy suffers to benefit the ones that help finance Obama's campaign. Just as disgusting as Cheney and Haliburton years prior.


----------



## Chris (Apr 26, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.


----------



## elvis (Apr 26, 2009)

Chris said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> ...



chrissy and bobo have started their communist love affair through a message board. how sweet.


----------



## Evangelical (Apr 26, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.



I have never had problems with my Credit Cards, so basically what you're saying is Democrats come to the rescue of idiots at the expense of Liberty and Freedom.

Let's see...there's a good book about that called "Liberty and Tyranny".

Look it up.


----------



## Chris (Apr 26, 2009)

Evangelical said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> ...



Even better book....House of Bush, House of Saud.

Look it up.


----------



## editec (Apr 26, 2009)

> *Democrats are not just like Republicans *


 
*ABsolutely right!*

*For partisans one is the BAD cop and the other the GOOD cop.*

*Hence they have chosen different things (that don't much matter to either of them) to pretend make them significantly different.*

*But as to the things that really matter to them (read to their masters) there's precious little difference between them.*

*Hey, I don't like that, any more than you do, Sealy, because like you I was once a very active and loyal DEM.*

*But fourty years of watching these two parties and the legislation they have passed, leaves me with very little choice but to conclude that when push comes to shove, there's too little difference to matter.*

*Here's a tipoff, too.*

*Waiting in the wings are two other SHAM parties...the greens and the libertarians.*

*If they are ever in positions of power, you can expect the same game to be played.*


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## PubliusInfinitum (Apr 26, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414).
> 
> This legislation will put an end to a host of deceptive and unjust credit card practices that impose additional financial hardship on consumers who are doing their best to stay afloat.
> 
> ...



Hey GREAT JOB!  Super... This should put an end to the Credit Card problem once and for all...

Of course, it will put an end to, or significantly alter the means of 'the poor' to access such cards... and what do ya suppose Mr. Levin et al will have to say when the Credit card Biz stops lending to that sacred cow...  

We have some history to look upon that tells us what they'll say.  I mean the Mortgage biz stopped lending to certain districts where the poor lived; and this because those districts had TERRIBLE records of repayment and one ideology or another came along and said something...  what was that they said and who was it?

Does anyone remember who that was or what they said and did?  
.
.
.
.
Oh YEAH!

The Federal Reserve came along and said it was a violation of their civil rights... that banks could NOT 'just not lend to them'; because they were of a protected class...  And let's see... what happened there?  

I know SOMETHING happened, but it was SO long ago...  

What happened when the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Caucus of Communists who just happen to be black, along with Bawney Fwank... DEMANDED that the Mortgage industry set aside sound actuarial lending thresholds and lend to THE POOR and then used quasi-private/ Federal banks to guarantee those loans?

Anyone remember how that worked out?

But I'm SURE that this manipulation of the Credit Markets by the Radical Left in the US Legislature will work out MUCH BETTER...  because it's not at ALL like the other thingy... I mean it's credit CARD debt...  Not Home Mortgages...

I doubt that this will extend the Recession of... When does the Left say this Recession started?  2007?  Yeah I think that was it...  SO I REALLY doubt that THIS manipulation of the Credit Markets will EXTEND, prolong, buttress or otherwise preclude the recovery from the 2007 Recession...  

And to those who think that THIS is ANYTHING like the DEPRESSION... GET REAL... The Depression lasted 12 YEARS!  And this one's only lasted 2 years so far...  and just because this one's lasted 6 months longer and is exponentially deeper, with a 50% loss in the equity markets (with no actual signs of improvement) than any recession in the 48 years of my life, doesn't mean that the INCREDIBLE MANIPULATION OF THE PRIVATE MARKETS BY THE PROGRESSIVE FISCAL POLICY of the FED and LEFTISTS IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT...

I'm sure that gross manipulation of the credit card markets, voiding contracts which were legally advanced and agreed to by BOTH PARTIES will work out JUST FINE with no really nasty 'UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES...'  And even if it does... ITS THEIR INTENTIONS THAT COUNT... NOT THE RESULTS.


----------



## PubliusInfinitum (Apr 26, 2009)

editec said:


> > *Democrats are not just like Republicans *
> 
> 
> 
> ...



We should print this off and send it to each Legislator; along with a copy of "Mr. Smith goes to Wasington."  

And let them, particularly the GOP see what their assinine attempt at comity and the 'new tone' has bought them... they've so muddled the line of distinction by stepping on the simple principles of prudent, virtuous government; which is essential to a Representative Republican government that people, such as this member, can't even find a distinction between the two competing ideologies... 

It's an embarassment to the entire CONCEPT of America.

Of course this member sees the distinction being one where the GOP is unable to just piss on the US Constitution entirely and let the left tend to the needs of the People... while I see it as the Left pissing on the Constitution and the GOP not having the sack to stand up and just tell them straight up, that it ain't going to HAPPEN and SHUTTING THE GOVERNMENT DOWN IN ITS TRACKS until the insanity dries on the vine and some semblence of virtuous prudence can be restored.

And therein lies the distinction... which this member just can't seem to discern.


----------



## Annie (Apr 26, 2009)

and many believe in the system of governing we inherited, but that's not the system that we've had for many years, regardless of which party controlled one or more branches of the Federal government.

I see neither the Libertarian or Green Party capable of holding office. The Greens are too far to the left, with many of the eviron whackos with them. The Libertarian Party, same problem, different direction. Whacked candidates and with the backing and acceptance of groups like Stormfront, nope, non-deal.

So we hope that either party fixes itself or a true moderate party arises.


----------



## editec (Apr 26, 2009)

*Pubie notes:*



> And thus in lies the distinction... which this member just can't seem to discern.


 
The proof is in the pudding, chum.

the distiction between the parties in rhtetoric is quite apparent.

The distinction in actions (THAT ACTUALLY MATTER TO THIS NATION) is not.

Your disgust with the Republican party and mine with the DEMOCRATIC party are actually more similar than you imagine.

The one thing I really sense about you is that you are sincerely a patriotic American.

On that matter you and I are quite similar.


----------



## PubliusInfinitum (Apr 26, 2009)

editec said:


> *Pubie notes:*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I just said that... so congrats...  ya finally struck brilliance...  

The distinction, is in the principle for which the GOP stands and the absence of principle on which the Left operates... the LACK of distinction is a function of the GOP FAILING TO DEOMONSTRATE THE LEFT IS OPERATING ABSENT SOUND, SUSTAINABLE PRINCIPLE AND GOING ALONG TO GET ALONG; by trotting out "CENTRISTS AND MODERATES" who by attempting to APPEAR Bi-PARTISAN, HAVE FAILED THE US AND THE VERY CONCEPT THAT IS AMERICA!

We both seem to agree that it's failed... but we both see the failure from two DISTINCT PERSPECTIVES and as I stated a moment ago... THEREIN... rests the distinction.

What we are looking at here is a replay of the Great Depression...  and it's embarassing.  The first crowd had an excuse...  The failure of left-think had not been thoroughly, incontestably exposed in the results of the application of Left-think from 1929... forward more than A DECADE with CATASTROPHIC RESULTS. 

The principles of course, being constant were present at the time; and there were millions who understood that the left was standing in direct contest of sound sustainable, AMERICAN principle... but at LEAST the left did not have a CENTURY of DEVASTATION wrought by one catastrophic leftist policy failure after the next... to look upon and understand the absurdity of their advocacies and actions; and the Right did not have the same with which to use as a means to counter their disasterous notions.

We have no such excuse today...  and yet we sit here, facing exactly the same catastrophe... it's madness.


----------



## PubliusInfinitum (Apr 26, 2009)

On the issue of Patriotism... I want to believe that...  I really do.

My problem; where I have a problem in solving that calculation, is where one squares the foundational concept of America and the certainty that such is 180 degrees in contest of everything the left stands for.

Where I am comforted is one's constant harping that one is a moderate... which, sadly is where I am torn, as well... and this stems from my understanding that left-think is an intellectual virus... 

Left-think in it's entirety is an intellectual weakness which cannot be entertained... tolerated, as such failures to act against those passive tendencies are in effect, merely the first steps towards active advocacy...  

The expression, paraphrased here: 'Evil is advanced when good men do nothing...' speaks to just that.  Where sound, sustainable principle is ignored, where the culture tolerates behavior which stands at odds with sound principle, that culture, in so doing promotes policy which sets aside that principle; whereupon cultural thresholds are lowered and the level of acceptable  cultural behavior is now bent on a curve which feeds that beast...  

And where one stakes a stand to reverse the curve... what does one find themself as manifesting?  That most lamentable of all cultural anathema... THE EXTREMIST.  

Now the term is NEVER APPLIED to those who seeks to moderate the culture downward...  its' NEVER EXTREME to want to lower the cultural threshold or standard... 'just a little'...  but stand and advocate to RAISE that THREASHOLD... the TINIEST BIT and there it is...  "THEY'RE EXTREMISTS."

Patriots are extreme by nature and the above is precisely why that is...  Patriots draw a line and their fate is discovered by where they lie in finality... was that line defended, or did they, finally, EXPIRE DEFENDING IT?

So, yeah... I want to believe that you're a Patriot... But when I set your words, advocacies and that which you are known to promote against that standard... its REALLY hard to see it.

With that said...  I WANT you to be a Patriot; I want us ALL to be Patriots... But to be a Patriot requires one to be an EXTREMIST...  

Want to see a Patriot?  Want to see what one looks like?  Go find a Marine...  An Army Ranger, a Navy Seal...  

Now that doesn't mean that every Patriot has to be Marine, Ranger, Seal... it means ya need the heart of a Marine, Ranger and Seal...  I could no more be what I was when I was actively serving, than I could flap my arms and fly...  But I damn well understand that the principles which I learned are absolute, immutable truth that have not changed; that they will not change; that they CANNOT CHANGE; and there are things I can do to defend them; and as silly as some will try to make it seem... that is, in large measure, what I do here; which is what I do where ever the opportunity rises elsewhere.  I debate the issue as the defender of the American Line... I ask for no quarter and I grant none and in every instance, I measure my success or failure against the impression I left with my opposition...  and where I am said to be an extremist, I know I have at least measured up to the absolute fucking MINIMUM that this standard requires; and I rarely am saddled with that shame.  

I rarely get someone returning to tell me I am right... but then I rarely run across anyone  that understands enough about the issue we're debating to KNOW IF I AM RIGHT OR NOT...  so my job is to fill that point of ingorance with the AMERICAN perspective... to set a point, which just perhaps, will give that individual a potential hold, which may at some point allow THEM to become extreme in their patriotism.  And that friend is ALL I CAN DO; and as a Great American once said: "All you can do, is ALL YOU CAN DO!  But ALL you can DO, is enough..."


----------



## PubliusInfinitum (Apr 26, 2009)

So that's it?  

Seriously?


----------



## JohnStOnge (Apr 26, 2009)

When you come right down to it, nobody who gets into difficulty using credit cards (including me)  has anybody  to blame but themselves.  You agree to the terms.  That includes agreeing to the credit card company being able to change the agreement.  You can take the time to read all the fine print or you can choose not to.  If you choose not to, that was your choice.  If you choose to accept the credit card even though you do not understand the fine print, that is your choice.

Believe me, I think those who profer credit cards are some of the most dispicable people in our sphere.  But NOBODY forces you do deal with them.  Also, pretty much EVERYBODY knows that the "recommended" way to use credit cards is NEVER to purchase more than you can pay off in a single month so that you don't run afoul of the astronomical interest they charge.

To say that GOVERNMENT should protect you from failing to understand that is absurd.  And I say that conceding that I have failed to "understand" that (or at least my wife has) as far as credit cards are concerned.  Nothing a credit card company says it will do to you is anything it doesn't say it can do to you when you agree to accept the credit card.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> A genuine free market is not dependent on any government, be it a democracy or dictatorship.



Really?  It doesn't have to follow any of the laws the government makes?  It doesn't have to pay taxes?  The products don't have to be safe or approved by the FDA?


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

Evangelical said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> ...



Funny, I just heard a report this weekend about college kids.  The average college kid graduates with $3000 in debt credit card

And that doesn't include their student loans.  

The average college student is carrying more than $3,000 in credit card debt on at least four credit card. This shocking statistic comes from a report released by Sallie Mae, one of the nation's largest student loan providers. The report also shows that:

84% of college students have a credit card 
The average number of credit cards is 4.6 
Half of students have 4 or more credit cards 
21% have a balance between $3,000 and $7,000! 
19% of college seniors have balances above $7,000 
Only 11% of students have a $0 balance 
80% have been surprised at their balances 
68% have made a purchase knowing they didn't have the money to pay the bill 
92% say they've used their card to pay for a college expense not covered by financial aid, mostly textbooks and school supplies

So good for you 

But the world doesn't revolve around you.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

JohnStOnge said:


> When you come right down to it, nobody who gets into difficulty using credit cards (including me)  has anybody  to blame but themselves.  You agree to the terms.  That includes agreeing to the credit card company being able to change the agreement.  You can take the time to read all the fine print or you can choose not to.  If you choose not to, that was your choice.  If you choose to accept the credit card even though you do not understand the fine print, that is your choice.
> 
> Believe me, I think those who profer credit cards are some of the most dispicable people in our sphere.  But NOBODY forces you do deal with them.  Also, pretty much EVERYBODY knows that the "recommended" way to use credit cards is NEVER to purchase more than you can pay off in a single month so that you don't run afoul of the astronomical interest they charge.
> 
> To say that GOVERNMENT should protect you from failing to understand that is absurd.  And I say that conceding that I have failed to "understand" that (or at least my wife has) as far as credit cards are concerned.  Nothing a credit card company says it will do to you is anything it doesn't say it can do to you when you agree to accept the credit card.



Name one other contract that you have ever signed where the other end said that they could raise their rates at any time for any reason.  


Yes, the government is supposed to protect us from this sort of thing.  That is EXACTLY the governments role.

I love you right wingers and the positions you take.  Good luck winning the young vote talking nonsense like this.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

PubliusInfinitum said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee passed the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act, S.414).
> ...



When the Federal Reserve took up the issue in December, it received more than 60,000 comments on its proposed changes in regulations. The result was a crackdown on practices like "two-cycle billing," in which a cardholder who pays the entire account balance one month but not the next gets charged interest on the average of both months of debt. The regulations take effect in July 2010.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the senators accused the companies of raising rates now to deflect the impact of new federal regulations scheduled to take effect July 1, 2010. The new rules will curtail some of the card companies' most-criticized practices - including one Obama singled out, that of "any-time, any-reason rate hikes" not triggered by cardholders' delinquencies.

Oh look, the typical threat from corporate America:  Banks, reeling from the recession and credit crunch, say proposed restrictions will raise consumer costs, limit credit availability, and ultimately hurt more borrowers than they help.


----------



## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

editec said:


> *Pubie notes:*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Really?  In a million years could you ever imagine the GOP doing this to the Credit card companies?

For immediate release 
The Federal Reserve Board on Friday proposed rules to prohibit unfair practices regarding credit cards and overdraft services that would, among other provisions, protect consumers from unexpected increases in the rate charged on pre-existing credit card balances.  

The rules, proposed for public comment under the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act), also would forbid banks from imposing interest charges using the "two-cycle" billing method, would require that consumers receive a reasonable amount of time to make their credit card payments, and would prohibit the use of payment allocation methods that unfairly maximize interest charges. They also include protections for consumers that use overdraft services offered by their bank. 

"The proposed rules are intended to establish a new baseline for fairness in how credit card plans operate," said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke.  "Consumers relying on credit cards should be better able to predict how their decisions and actions will affect their costs."

The proposed changes to the Boards Regulation AA (Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices) would be complemented by separate proposals that the Board is issuing under the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z) and the Truth in Savings Act (Regulation DD). 

The provisions addressing credit card practices are part of the Boards ongoing effort to enhance protections for consumers who use credit cards, and follow the Board's 2007 proposal to improve the credit card disclosures under the Truth in Lending Act. The FTC Act proposal includes five key protections for consumers that use credit cards:

Banks would be prohibited from increasing the rate on a pre-existing credit card balance (except under limited circumstances) and must allow the consumer to pay off that balance over a reasonable period of time. 

Banks would be prohibited from applying payments in excess of the minimum in a manner that maximizes interest charges. 

Banks would be required to give consumers the full benefit of discounted promotional rates on credit cards by applying payments in excess of the minimum to any higher-rate balances first, and by providing a grace period for purchases where the consumer is otherwise eligible. 

Banks would be prohibited from imposing interest charges using the "two-cycle" method, which computes interest on balances on days in billing cycles preceding the most recent billing cycle. 

Banks would be required to provide consumers a reasonable amount of time to make payments.


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## del (Apr 27, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the senators accused the companies of raising rates now to deflect the impact of new federal regulations scheduled to take effect July 1, 2010. The new rules will curtail some of the card companies' most-criticized practices - including one Obama singled out, that of "any-time, any-reason rate hikes" not triggered by cardholders' delinquencies.
> 
> Oh look, the typical threat from corporate America:  Banks, reeling from the recession and credit crunch, say proposed restrictions will raise consumer costs, limit credit availability, and ultimately hurt more borrowers than they help.



yeah, that's why biden supported changing bankruptcy laws to make them favorable to credit card companies, because he's different.

_"As Scott Delman describes, the 2005 bankruptcy legislation, which passed in a Republican-controlled Congress with minimal Democratic support, made the terms for consumers seeking to declare personal bankruptcy more stringent. Among the key features of the legislation was that it made unsecured loans, which are most often credit card loans, less easily discharged in a bankruptcy. Because this bill drastically increased the likelihood that a bankrupt consumer would have to pay back their credit card loans, the card industry advocated strongly for its passage.

Since many of the independent and bank-owned credit card companies are located in Delaware, the card industry lobbied aggressively for the passage of this bill to that states Congressional delegation. *As a consequence, Mr. Biden was one of the few Democratic supporters of this bill, and, as has been well reported, one of Congresss largest beneficiaries of the industrys political donations.*"_

On Bankruptcy: Biden vs. Obama - Campaign Stops Blog - NYTimes.com


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## sealybobo (Apr 27, 2009)

del said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the senators accused the companies of raising rates now to deflect the impact of new federal regulations scheduled to take effect July 1, 2010. The new rules will curtail some of the card companies' most-criticized practices - including one Obama singled out, that of "any-time, any-reason rate hikes" not triggered by cardholders' delinquencies.
> ...



the 2005 bankruptcy legislation, which passed in a Republican-controlled Congress with minimal Democratic support

So how does this get you to vote Republican?  

Democrats in Michigan also passed the law that drug companies couldn't be sued in Michigan if their drugs were approved by the FDA.  I didn't like that, but I understood that it was to attract those companies to come to Michigan.  Now that they are leaving, the dems want to get rid of this law, but the GOP won't allow them to put it to a vote.  

So should I be mad that Democrats helped pass this law and vote Republican next time Del?

Looks like Biden was defending companies that are in his home state.  Isn't that what you do as a Senator?

But these are the little things that make people think they are all the same.

I blame Bush.


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## del (Apr 27, 2009)

keep telling yourself there's a difference, bobo, if it helps you sleep better.


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## DiveCon (Apr 27, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> del said:
> 
> 
> > sealybobo said:
> ...


of course you blame Bush
i bet you scream out "DAMN YOU BUSH" when you stub your toe

seek out professional help
really, you NEED it


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## sealybobo (Apr 29, 2009)

del said:


> keep telling yourself there's a difference, bobo, if it helps you sleep better.



HUGE difference between the two parties.  That's why one party is doing really well right now and the other is in shambles.

The GOP spent the last 8 years fucking us and now the Dems will work to undo the damage.  Are they perfect?  No.  But are they different enough that one is better than the other?  Of course.  Why else bother voting?  And why else would Spector defect?

Last week we sent over 30,000 letters to Congress, urging legislators to support the bipartisan Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. And yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved it by a vote of 92-4, bringing us one step closer to providing federal law enforcers with the resources they need to go after the white-collar criminals who have wreaked so much havoc on our economy and hard-working families.

When the Bush-Cheney Administration took thousands of federal investigators off financial fraud cases, criminals like Bernard Madoff -- whose "Ponzi scheme" cost investors $65 billion -- operated with virtual impunity. Unless we act to reverse this course, financial frauds will continue to rob hard-working Americans of their retirement funds, their homes, and their savings.

If passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, the bipartisan Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act will:

Authorize an additional $245 million a year to hire hundreds of federal investigators, prosecutors, and staff to fight fraud,

Fill in statutory gaps to account for modern types of fraud and correct erroneous court decisions,

Update the definition of "financial institution" in federal fraud statutes to include all mortgage lending businesses, and

Protect federal recovery funding from fraudulent use.
The Senate has taken bold action. Now it's the House of Representatives' turn to get tough on white-collar crime.

How do you think these letters would have been received by a Republican majority?  Much different than how the Dems handled it.

Remember Republicans.  When you tell us that the Dems suck, I'm going to remind you that the GOP are no different.  And when you say they are no different, I'll show you differences.


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## mash107 (Apr 29, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> del said:
> 
> 
> > keep telling yourself there's a difference, bobo, if it helps you sleep better.
> ...



Government is as inept to fight fraud as it is to fight drugs, terrorism, poverty, climate change, etc. It simply is too inept, no matter how much money is stolen to fund it. The only course of action is to punish those guilty of fraud, and not give false hope as to circumvent due diligence one would exert otherwise.

Gop are no different than Dems. They both pillage the rights of the people to serve themselves and those well connected, the opposite of what should be according to our Constitution.


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## frazzledgear (Apr 29, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> JohnStOnge said:
> 
> 
> > When you come right down to it, nobody who gets into difficulty using credit cards (including me)  has anybody  to blame but themselves.  You agree to the terms.  That includes agreeing to the credit card company being able to change the agreement.  You can take the time to read all the fine print or you can choose not to.  If you choose not to, that was your choice.  If you choose to accept the credit card even though you do not understand the fine print, that is your choice.
> ...



Name one law that says you are excused from the terms of a contract if you don't bother to READ it before signing it!  Playing the eternal victim is a liberal thing.  OUR government was NOT set up to protect people from their own bad decisions.  OUR system of government was set up with the definite premise that a normal adult was in a far better position to know what was and was not in his own best interests over a bunch of faceless strangers who not only do not know of your existence -but don't give a shit that you exist.

Government is ONLY OTHER PEOPLE.  It is NOT a magical entity that is all knowing and holds the answers to all problems.  I wouldn't dream of turning over my life's decisions to the guy on the next block.  So why on earth would I ever consider turning them over to a bunch of faceless strangers who managed to get hired by government but cannot ever be fired no matter how incompetently they do their job?  Until they can be fired for incompetence, I don't want them involved in my life on ANY level, thank you.  I reject the notion that I need government to protect me from MYSELF!  Those who think they need government to protect themselves from themselves -live in the wrong country.  

And no matter what propaganda you want to repeat like a mindless parrot -it is this very basic premise that differentiates liberals from conservatives.  WHO has primary responsiblity for the individual?  The individual or a bunch of faceless strangers pretending that getting hired into a job they can't be fired from endowed them with magical abilities to somehow just "know" what is in your best interests?  Liberals and conservatives answer this one differently.

If you claim to know what is in your own best interests over a bunch of strangers for the most important decisions of your life -then you can't turn around and play the victim card when you don't like the consequences of YOUR bad decisions.  Having to handle those consequences is how we learn -all our lives.  Insisting that people should not have to face those consequences is why we have more people than ever before in history -making all sorts of bad decisions.  And then expecting someone else to protect them from those consequences.  Now perhaps instead of pretending that a normal adult is an eternal victim who cannot be held accountable for his own decisions in life -perhaps you can explain for us all how protecting normal adults from the natural consequences of their own poor decisions -benefits society?  I'd love to hear that one.

BTW -I have three kids in college.  All have at least one credit card.  NONE have an outstanding balance.  But maybe that is because as responsible parents we made sure to drill into their heads that credit card companies only exist to MAKE MONEY.  Not to give them "free" loans for stuff they otherwise could not afford to buy.  Try spreading that one around instead of the liberal "eternal victim" bullshit.  You won't because the idea of using any sort of wisdom, common sense and seeing life beyond just tomorrow when making life's decisions -goes against the liberal mentality that we are eternal victims.  Of ourselves.  Excuse me while I puke.


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## sealybobo (May 4, 2009)

frazzledgear said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > JohnStOnge said:
> ...



You are a conservative, and so you are going to see the GOP's side in every argument.  And you guys aren't the deepest of thinkers, which is why it is impossible to educate you on anything.

Sure, everyone is responsible for reading the fine print.  But that doesn't mean it is ok for the credit card companies to practice deceptive lending.  

Boy, how to even begin to respond to you.  The government's role is to protect its citizens, both domestic and abroad.  The credit card companies are enemies to the people.  Their practices are deceptive and misleading.  You don't even know it, but that's ok.  No matter whether you want the help or not, the democrats won't let them predatory lend to you either.  And if you miss a payment, your interest should not jack up to 30%.  Whether you approve or not, we won't let them fuck you.  Because if they can fuck you, they can fuck the rest of us.  Not that we mind if they fuck you.  In fact, you deserve to get fucked hard.

Who has responsibility over you.  Yea, we heard that mantra all last year.  Here again is a conservative talking point that does not require any in depth thinking.  Never does.

No one played the victim during Clinton's reign.  No, it took the GOP to deregulate industries that need to be regulated before people became victims.  And talk about being victims.  You right wingers claim you are victims of freddy/fanny.  Soooo full of shit its insane.  

You have three kids in college?  My guess is that you make more than the average family.  If not, you and your kids all have debt.  

If your kids have to pay off their college, then they can thank you for their college tuition increases and the debt that they will have when they graduate.

If you are paying for their college, then  you can not relate to the average American, because you make too much.

I just came here to show you how the Dems are better than the GOP

Obama cracks down on overseas tax loopholes - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com

Obama cracks down on overseas tax loopholes

his plan would generate $210 billion in new taxes over 10 years and "make it easier" for companies to create jobs at home. Over a decade, $210 billion would make a modest dent in a federal deficit expected to swell to $1.2 trillion in 2010. 

Under the plan, companies would not be able to write off domestic expenses for generating profits abroad. The goal is to reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to base all or part of their operations in other countries.


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## sealybobo (May 29, 2009)

editec said:


> *Pubie notes:*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



See, HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!

President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will announce that they are cracking down on tax laws that encourage corporations to send jobs overseas and allow the corporations to hide money in international tax shelters. 

President Obama to Call for Tax Changes for Corporate Tax-Avoiders, Out-sourcers - Political Punch

Tax laws that Republicans wrote and denied existed.

Tax laws the CORPORATE media didn't tell us about (I heard it one day on NPR back in 2003 or 2004 and never again)

And tax laws that Republicans will argue to keep in place.  Let me guess, if we take these loopholes away, it'll cost jobs and raise prices.  Get ready for the lame old arguments from the right.


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## sealybobo (May 29, 2009)

President Obama and Secretary Geithner plan to remove tax deductions for companies that take jobs overseas, saving $60 billion from 2011 to 2018. Combined with reforming the foreign tax credit system, the total savings would be $103 billion.


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## editec (May 29, 2009)

PubliusInfinitum said:


> editec said:
> 
> 
> > *Pubie notes:*
> ...


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## sealybobo (May 29, 2009)

editec said:


> PubliusInfinitum said:
> 
> 
> > editec said:
> ...


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## sealybobo (May 29, 2009)

frazzledgear said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > JohnStOnge said:
> ...



Name one other contract other than CC companies who can change the terms/interest/rules at anytime for any reason.

And I love how you don't trust government that you get to elect, but you trust greedy robber barons who will own the corporations long after the politicians get tossed out of office.  

No we don't answer that question differently.  I am responsible for me.  You are responsible for you.  This is just a right wing talking point meant to suggest that we want bigger government to control our lives.  You're brainwashed dude.

And this victim bullshit you keep talking about.  The GOP government worked against American labor in favor of corporations TOO MUCH the last 8 years.  Now you'll be the cry baby when the government works in our favor.  Watch and see what a cry baby you will be the next 8 years.

Tell me more about how you afford to send 3 kids to college and none of them have credit card debt, that you know of anyways.  If they all have AT LEAST one credit card, are you micromanaging all of those cards?  You are probably clueless and they each probably owe over $3K on their cards.  I fucking bet!!  And they are probably liberals and won't tell you because you are an dumb old dog.  LOL.  

Do they have college loans?  Can't wait to hear more.  I'll expose


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## sealybobo (Jun 4, 2009)

del said:


> keep telling yourself there's a difference, bobo, if it helps you sleep better.



Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.  
He said, "My son, the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all.

One is Evil.  It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity,
 guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness,
 benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."


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## STAND4LIBERTY (Jun 5, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?



Probably for the same reason Joe Biden did, the credit card companies paid them off, any questions?


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## DiveCon (Jun 5, 2009)

STAND4LIBERTY said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> ...


you have to understand bobo, if anything is bad, there is a republican at the root of it
doesnt matter how many democrats went right along with it, its only the republicans fault


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## STAND4LIBERTY (Jun 5, 2009)

DiveCon said:


> STAND4LIBERTY said:
> 
> 
> > sealybobo said:
> ...



Thanks for the warning! I have encountered enough blind partisan loyalists in my days here on earth to know the species when I encounter it and take anything they say with a grain or two or ten thousand of salt.


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## Gunny (Jun 6, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> frazzledgear said:
> 
> 
> > sealybobo said:
> ...



Tell us, why DID Bill Clinton loosen the restrictions even more than Jimmy Carter did on credit card eligibility?

You're such a freakin' goof.


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## DiveCon (Jun 6, 2009)

Gunny said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > frazzledgear said:
> ...


clearly, to bobo, Bush forced both Carter and Clinton to do that


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## Soaring (Jun 6, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> driveby said:
> 
> 
> > Annie said:
> ...


Where does the government have the authority to interfere in a business transaction with a private company?  The percent a credit card company will charge will be dependent on what the public is willing to pay.  If they charge too much, they go out of business.  You need to keep things in perspective, and not think the American public are completely illiterate.  I get calls from credit card companies quite often trying to persuade me to apply for their card.  They are offering cash back bonuses and guarantee the lowest rates from other companies.  There is fierce competition out there, and if the goddamn government would stay out of it, it would take care of itself.


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## sealybobo (Jun 10, 2009)

Soaring said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > driveby said:
> ...



Where does the government have the authority?  Here:

April 20 (Bloomberg) -- The United Steelworkers union asked President Barack Obama to cap automobile-tire imports from China, saying the lower-priced goods are costing U.S. jobs. 

When Chinese imports lead to the idling of American factories.

When it has caused a recession.

When it causes really high unemployment.

When we learn it caused last years record $266 billion trade deficit with China on the Asian nations subsidies, currency value and import curbs.

And do you know what is great about this?  It is going to open the floodgates on complaints about unfair free trade.  

And nothing was done about this under GW, except maybe he helped the Chinese and corporations fuck us American workers.  And you argue in favor of screwing American workers for cheap goods.  What a patriot.

Former President George W. Bush, during his eight years in office, turned down every request for general safeguards, which calls for the government to impose import quotas or tariffs to protect domestic industries from foreign competition deemed unfair. 

I can't find information from the "liberal" media, but former Bush employees now work for China helping them find the loopholes the GOP created to get around any safegards.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 10, 2009)

The steelworkers begging for the protection of the government because they can't compete doesn't give the government the authority to do anything, let alone anything to do with credit cards.  The Constitution gives the government its authority.


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## manu1959 (Jun 10, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.



credit card invented in 46 under a dem president.....ya it was all a gop trick....


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## sealybobo (Jul 1, 2009)

manu1959 said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> ...



Here's the Diff.

A month ago, Ben Nelson, a conservative Democratic Senator from Nebraska said he would not vote for real healthcare reform. He actually called the choice of a public healthcare option "a deal breaker."

Sen. Nelson's stonewalling didn't last long, because DFA partnered with ChangeCongress-org to push back. With phone calls from DFA members, blog ads, and an aggressive mailer to influential Democrats in Nebraska, we asked if Senator Nelson will sell out Nebraska for $2 million in contributions from the insurance industry. Within two weeks, Sen. Nelson caved, flipping his position and promising he won't support a Republican filibuster.

Thanks to your work, one by one roadblock Democrats are caving. We're getting the message across: either you stand with President Obama and Dr. Dean in favor of a public option or you will stand alone for reelection.

Who's next? Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. She's siding with the insurance interests who've given her $1.6 million instead of with the 76% of Americans in favor of a public option. This time, we're going big with a hard hitting T.V. ad.


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## Bern80 (Jul 2, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.



Here's the thing you don't get bobo. This country was founded on the concept of freedom. Freedom requires a level of responsibility on the part of EVERYONE, not just big business. And it isn't even debatable that the American consumer has dropped there end of the stick on that one. Anyone with basic math skills should be able to figure out the consequences and scenarios involved in credit cards or a mortgage. Stop passing the buck on behalf of the American consumer. The single easiest way for this country to improve (however you choose to define that) is for people to look the fuck in the mirror and start with themselves by educating themselves. Information on any and every subject is more accessble than it has ever been before, yet we're observable becoming dumber as a nation.

That can only be pinned on dems. You can start with Carter and the CRA if you like or maybe even FDR I dont' ask myself how the hell Obama got elected, I ask why would a righty ever get elected again. Libs cater to the lowest common denominator. Government is going provide your health care, government is going to create jobs for you, government is going to protect you from this, government will give you that. I think you can see where the appeal would lie for most people. What candidate could ever win on a platform of what really needs to be said. That Americans need to be MORE responsible if they want to see improvement. That they don't have a right to obligate someone else to their healthcare costs. That the best way to not get swindeled is to do your homework as a consumer. I mean all of these require a modicum of effort on the part of the individual. Something that we have been conditioned to do less and less. Getting elected is nice, but all the dems are achieving is making us dumber because if you look back at the various major dem policies. The New Deal, the CRA, Obama's credit card legislation transfer responsibility from individuals to someone else.


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## Derek_Plumber (Jul 9, 2009)

It's a whole new way of living.

Coming at you.

Growing strong.

Our new America's getting better every day!​


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## Darkwind (Jul 10, 2009)

sealybobo said:


> Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> 
> Oh yea, free market.  Free to fuck the American consumers butt good.


Your blaming the GOP for this?

Wow.

Which one of the GOP held the gun to the consumers head and forced them to open unsecured loans (credit cards) so that they could get, 'fucked' as you put it...

I'm all for setting up standard practices for credit card companies and keeping them from many of their unethical business practices.  But lets keep our eye on the ball here.  Personal responsibility MUST also factor into this and blaming the GOP for not acting like Stalinists is hardly a credible argument.


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## ba1614 (Jul 10, 2009)

Darkwind said:


> sealybobo said:
> 
> 
> > Why did the GOP allow credit card companies to do these things?
> ...


There is no such thing as "Personal responsibility" anymore.


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