tar

Overtone, I know already that slavery has not been removed from this nation. I know already that class warfare has not ended in this nation. I know already that the conflict between rationality and religion has not been resolve But I, in my personal muses surrounding discussions at work and home and here have made some sense of it, or see some glimmers of hope, avenues of understanding of oneself and hence of human behavior, and hence of societal interaction. Insights that I am trying to share, that I sense, I have a little bit shared. It has to do with capability and trustworthyness. The power that each of us has to effect the reality around us, and what rules we adhere to, in the excercise and accumulation and application of that power. As you say, ideologies cannot be defeated by armies, but armies can change reality. A single man or woman, with a single idea has great power if they are in control of an army. The president of the United States has great power because he IS in control of an army. Therefore his/her ideology must be subject to the will of his soldiers, or the army will dissolve or revolt. Is the army of the U.S. subject to the will of the masters or the slaves amongst the population? Is the army of the U.S. subject to the will of the rich or the poor amongst the population? IS the army of the U.S. subject to the will of the scientist or the artist? Is the army of the U.S. subject to the will of an ideator, or the ideology he/she is guided by? My insight is that we have already been addressing these issues. People, long dead, have passed on to us the principles, the ideologies, under which we should operate. The founders of the constitution were brilliant men. They set up the checks and balances that they already knew would be required to keep any one man's ideology, from controlling the army. Regards, TAR2

iNow, You gave a prediction for the future in regards to the Fed tapering. I gave a slightly different solution. You base your prediction on the excellence of the Fed's ability, the ability of a group of our best, sitting down, looking at the facts and taking the most appropriate action in the best interest of the economy. I agree with you completely and still look at reality, and the effects that 65 billion has on market expectation, on animal spirits, on every player in a massive world where the realities of game theory come to the fore, and everybody assesses the new situation and determines what their next best move is. Where to hide their wealth and power for protection, or where to invest it for growth and profit. Known rules and metrics are use by each of these intelligent human beings. Each person in the thusly defined economy assesses the situation, determines what everybody else's best move is going to be, and buy's and sells, hires and lay's off, spends or saves, expands or contracts, innovates and adjusts, through any one of a complex myriad of interelated stategies, vehicles, and use trusted people and institutions in the real world, to affect real lives, build real companies, employ real people and cause wealth and power to trade hands amoungst people that trust each other's promises, and live up to their obligations. But you tell me I don't know anything about the economy because I am not a Fed official, and they are smarter than me, know everything I know, and therefore cannot ease to early or too late, and will do it right on time, based on the data. The market however is ALWAYS ahead of the Fed. The Fed can only react appropriately. Set expectations from which everybody can work. Set the interest rate from which we all plan our next move and our futures. QE is an extraordinary measure. It is beyond the usual tool kit. It is a peice of emergency equipment that shifts wealth and power around the world at extraordinary speeds and creates winners and losers at a pace that is unrealistic, and causes TAR to lose touch with reality, to not understand what is going on and what the "meaning" behind the 23 billion that my company generates world wide, is in relation to it. So I question the Fed. It is not because I am stupid, it is not because I am registered republican, it is because it does not make sense and I am trying to make sense of it. Then I am called a fascist, or a supporter of fascists, or a dupe of fascists by Overtone,(who is a disbeliever in the trustworthiness of bankers), and attempt to illustrate that I do not believe that assessment of me is correct, to which Phi, a person who I have great respect for replies blah blah, strawman snip. Over this last week I have undergone an extraordinary amount of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance both on this thread and at my company. An extraordinary week that has left me, rather a basket case. I am trying to figure this thing out WITH you all, and you are treating me like the enemy. Perhaps I don't know everything, or have the purest heart, or the most capability and trustworthiness in every area of human endevor that a person can have, but I know I am a good person, and I know I live in a great country and being told that my assessment is untrue, or a result of manipulation or ignorance is personally quite disturbing. I wish we could take this discussion, both on a personal level and a political level, to a higher level. Sort out the name calling. And look at the reality of the thing. Regards, TAR2 Have we truely entered the world of doublethink and doubletalk expressed in the book 1984, where peace is war and love is hate and BIG BROTHER is in charge of us? Or are WE the ones still running the place? I would rather believe the latter. I would rather we stuck together, and made the latter the reality of the situation, since it IS the reality of the situation. We make our world, what it is, and we have more power, when we do it together, than when we fight. And hate, and distrust.

Give me your tired your hungry your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free. That is the side that you Overtone, and you, jduff, and everyone that calls themselves American is on. Only our distrust of ourselves can fracture this team and cause it to lose. Phi for all, Not sure what your point is. Can you be more specific? ? Tar I am trying to offer common ground that we can all stand on, that we all do stand on, so democrats and republicans can see that they are standing on the same ground, and you keep coming back at me like I am defending Rush Limbaugh. I have no interest in defending Rush Limbaugh or Fox spin, or Nazis. I am simply speaking from my heart, about where I see common ground and common purpose and trying to engender some hope for reconciliation and trust between countrymen, that have no actual reason to fear each other. What are you telling me? That I am living a lie of some sort? Seriously. Tell me the way it really is, in your opinion, without using the word democrat or the word republican. Tell me what we had 30 years ago, what we have now, and where other than here, we should be instead. Without placing blame or praise on any particular actors or non actors, just tell me the decrepencies between the actual now and best possible now that could have, should have, would have evolved from thirty years ago, til now. what is your vision for the present?

Overtone, Fascist? That was a different time, and a different continent. We fought a war to defeat that ideology already. The silver haired gentleman in my profile picture was sent out as scout for his platoon, while fighting the Nazis during the battle of the Bulge, and was wounded by a machine gun bullet from a german pillbox that entered his shoulder and lodged at his hip (he was pinned behind a small mound that was not big enough to protect him and would have been killed had the browning automatic rifle of his platoon not arrived on the scene to apply covering fire as he retreated) severing a nerve in his arm that was reattached a little shorter than before, and his left hand was not very useful after that, which ended his dreams of becoming a surgeon, so he became a PhD in Psychology, had a private practice, had a patient at a time, and taught psychology and was eventually head of the psychology dept and a well respected and loved professor, to many. I grew up knowing the school and the professors that were his friends. One of those friends was a Dr. Zucker, the smartest man I ever knew. He could have an in depth conversation with you, while solving integral calculus problems for fun and relaxation, like the rest of us do crosswords. He was a Prussian, a thought leader, a genius, authoritarian and stern, but the farthest thing from a Nazi, you will ever encounter in your life. He was a philosophy professor and as reasonable a man as it is humanly possible to get. My worldview was cradled in that enviroment. As in AGAINST Nazis and Fascists. Later, while I was in the U.S. Army, during the Iranian hostage crisis, I sat on alert, in a motor pool, in a German Kaserne that once housed Nazi Panzers. It was a different world, we had new enemies, we were there protecting Western Europe against the threat of Soviet invasion. I saw an American flag being burned and stompt upon at a civilian carnival, by 6 or 7 Iranians. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life, I needed to stop them, I was ready to die, our standing order was to NOT be provoked, to not confront. I was in civilian clothes but my country was being stompt on in front of my eyes, I saw two americans from my brigade approaching and as I was about to rescue my flag, they turned away, as instructed, and I stepped back. To this day I remember the moment, and often wish I had stepped in and saved my flag from discrace. May have died, may have been beat up and consequently reprimanded by my superiors, may have created an incident that changed the course of history and prevented the loss of the twin towers. who knows, but if I had stepped in, it would not have been to protect Facsism, it would have been to protect the flag of the country I love, and all it stands for. Later the two folks at the lower left of my profile picture came to visit me in Germany and I had researched and located, and we three together visited, the hill by the Saar river where my father had almost died defending his nation, and freedom, and the rule of law and reason, and the Allied countries against the ideology of the Nazis. The river wound beneath, the valley was green and beautifully lush and peaceful. We met a German man on a walk and said a civil hello at the same spot on the path that my father remembers was open to ememy fire from the opposite bank. Later still I traveled by myself to a U.S Military Hospital in Lanstul and saw the hostages returning from Iran and their long ordeal. I welcomed them home, along with a throng of press and others. I love my country, I would die for my country, my father almost literally gave his left hand for this nation, and the values and ideals it stands for. You are in error to call me a fascist, or to call this country a fascist nation. We simply are not. You are mistaken. Regards, TAR2 Neither half of this nation is evil, and neither should fear losing it, to the other side of a silly little aisle, that only defines slight disagreements in approach to a unified goal, when compared against the history of the world.

Overtone, Well, you have already decided for me, and stated repeatedly that any proper judgement I make is a case of proper judgement, and any improper judgement I make is a mindless parroting of the Fox Republican line. This would logically lead me to believe that you believe all proper judgements are made by democrats and all improper judgements are made by republicans. This not only impossible, but not evident. Evidence wise, I have lived in and around republicans and democrats and found both to be capable and trustworthy up to the limits of their capabilities and trustworthiness, which almost never was caused by or defined by their political affiliation. In fact, walking down the street and looking at folks, it is difficult to know who each voted for in the last election, and by law, they don't have to tell you, should you ask. So what are the chances, that you know anything about my beliefs, my worldview, the teams I align myself with, the people I associate with, the teams I am on, the wisdom or foolishness of my choices, my intelligence level, the people I am duped by, and the people I have or have not duped, or my capabilty and trustworthyness, based on the fact that I told you I am registered republican? Slim to none. And what are the chances that no wise decision has ever been made by a republican? That no love has ever been exibited? That nothing good has ever been built or maintained by anyone that ever pulled a repubican lever in an election? Slim to none. In fact if one is to make assumptions and correlations and guesses about the registrations and voting patterns of people, based on exit polling and such, it appears that older people, with wealth and power, might tend to vote repubican, and younger people with little wealth and power might tend to vote democrat. Farm land seems to grow republicans, cities and universities seem to grow democrats. Cubans seem to go republican and Jews democratic, oppressed peoples democrat, and oppressors, republican...etc. etc. But none of these distinctions and correlations are foolproof, or indicative of proper and inproper judgement, beliefs and values nor can these distictions and correlations give one enough information to judge a particular individual's capabilities and trustworthiness, which can be assessed only by the qualities they themselves exhibit, and by the actions and the result of the actions, they themselves make in their own self interests and the interests of the people they align themselves with. It simply cannot be true, that republicans are wrong, and democrats are right. Or vice a versa. Regards, TAR2 If it were true, by fact and reason and unamious human decision, that there was a correct and proper and beneficial party with which to belong, we would all be registered at birth to this party and our votes would be predetermined.

iNow, I like Obama as a president. He is pragmatic, honest and very well spoken. I did not vote for him and disagree with him at some of the same levels that I disagree with Overtone. I don't like change for the sake of change. It has to make sense, from the bottom up, and the top down, and each level and the potential consequences, as in who wins and who loses, whose power is stolen and given to another, in each circumstance, needs to be carefully debated and considered, when dealing with laws and policies and rule changes that affect 283 million separate cases of power holders. I liked his speech today. I trust the man. The fact that he made bold and effective decisions in the case of the car companies, and the oil rig disaster, and Bin Laden only increased and cemented my trust in him. He is on my side. He is also my president, a post I will honor, no matter who sits in the chair. This does not mean I can't disagree with some of his decisions, or feel that he has made moves that ignore the losers he creates, blatently, or unintentionally, or unwittingly. I reserve the right to trust who I deem to be on my side, on any given issue, on any given idealogy, at any particular level, without Overtone throwing me in her/his/its reject pile and throwing me off EVERY team she/he/it is on to do it. This is my point to overtone and to jduff, who both think that 90 percent of the population either think like they do, or should, and at the same time, think that half the population, or most the population is against them. I think this point is crucial to understand on a lot of levels and for a lot of reasons, that have to do with the fractures in Washington, the fractures between the classes, the fractures between races, and people of various conflicting sexual orientations, religions, intelligence levels and ideologies. A lesson that the president reiterated, that we all learned by the bad judgement that the tea party is exhibiting and did exhibit so clearly in this latest example, and admittedly continuing example of negative behavior. YOU CANNOT CUT OFF YOUR NOSE, TO SPITE YOUR FACE! I am on jduff's team in many ways, I am on overtones team in many ways. Just because I wear a diffent jersey in a particular contest, in a particular choosing up of teams, should not, and cannot possibly throw me off EVERY team that overtone has joined, or the jduff has joined. I rarely comment for effect, or to troll, but I did in the case of saying that Phi and overtone were calling for a one party system. I wanted to make the point that I knew they were not, even though they were throwing everybody, not a democrat into the discard pile. Same reason I posted the Albania link. I already know I am on more teams that include both overtone, and jduff, than either of them are considering. And neither of them actually has the right or reason to throw me out of any club, where I have actually paid my dues, based on the fact that they once saw me wearing the same hat as the guy that ran over their cat. Regards, TAR2 How is it even remotely humanly possible, for hundreds of men and women to make a well considered decision, to vote their conscience and exercise the full extent of their wisdom and judgement, based on every possible team they are on, and have every single one on the right side of an aisle come to the opposite decision as those on the left side? If it was not for the fact that it happens every day in Washington, I would say it was impossible. Hey, I just thought of a law we could pass, that is reasonable and just, given the impossibility or the extraordiary improbability, of the aisle accidently being the dividing line between the proper and improper decision. Any vote of the house or senate which results in a party line vote, shall be declared improperly influenced, ilconsidered, null and void, and the bill shall be discarded and a new and proper bill be debated, drafted and voted upon. If we accept party line voting, either the bill is bad, or the decision is bad. One or the other or both, must be rigged. If any rule cannot be agreed upon in good conscience by the proper majority of an assembly of freely choosen representatives of the population, it definitely should not be, the law of the land.

iNow, An important component certainly is what the Fed does, but also important is what you do. Do you replace your 13 year old car or not. Do you redo the family room or not. Do you open up a new store in Clifton or not. The future has not happened yet. The Fed does not know any better than you or me what the economy will look like in 8 months. Its data dependent. It depends entirely on what goods and services we buy and sell in the mean time. And what we do with our time, what efforts we make, what ideas we turn into reality, what value we can create for each other to WANT to purchase from us. We are dependent on the Fed to regulate our money supply. But its us that make the economy good or bad. It always has been and always will be so. Everybody waits for the rain to stop and the sun to dry out the hay a few days, before hooking up the bailer, and going out, and making some hay. The economy booms when everybody finds people to trust with their money, and crashes when nobody find anybody to trust with their money. My thinking is that the same goes for power. And jduff does not trust the people that could have black helicoptors, and overtone does not trust anybody that is not as smart and liberal as he/she/it is, and iNow does not trust anybody that can't think rationally, and I don't trust anybody that can't pick the garbage up that is laying in front of their own front stoop. So it does not depend on the Fed. They depend on the data. The data depends on what we do today, and tomorrow and the day after that. Regards, TAR2

Overtone, Lovely as always to hear you and Phi call for a one party system. I think you guys are wrong. We need a pluralist system. The reformers and the conservatives, to keep things from getting too tyranical in either direction. By stepping in each other's way (with a good heart) we keep power and money and the economy in a state that benefits self determination, freedom from tyranny, equal rights of all under the law and a whole host of other positive American values that we all cherish. The rewards to effort and talent, the increases of the human intrinsic values created by capability and trust, that make us all a little richer. Now that cooler heads are prevailing in Washington, the push and pull, conversations, comprimises and governance of our nation, can and will continue. I don't want to see Palin and Cruz and Bachman in power, any more than you do. But I sure am glad there is somebody standing against the tyranny of the left. I just read a wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sali_Berisha that I would like you to read Overtone, and give me your assessment of where the evil is in Albania. What party you would be registered in, and whether or not you would frame the democrats as the repulicans and the socialists as democrats, or the democrats as democrats and the socialists as conservatives, wishing to return to a one party, communistic rule. Bearing in mind that the democrats ran the ponzi scheme, and instituted privatization of government institutions. Berisha embodies many of the fine characteristics that you and I both admire. How is it possible, in your black and white division of the definition of a good guy and a bad guy, that a democrat could run a ponzi scheme? AND be AGAINST the tyranical rule of a one party system? Regards, TAR2 Oh, and iNow, I am countering your prediction of the Fed beginning tapering in the summer with my own prediction. I do not think our economy needs to be on life support any more. The Fed has historically lagged the market and pulled the trigger late, both in tightening and loosening the money supply, and they know that, and are anxious to at least taper QE back to zero, so they are in a position to begin raising rates, should the economy gain traction. There is A LOT of money around, in the coffers of businesses, and once people start trusting each other again and trusting the economy to be stable, people and business will start spending their cash more freely, and looking for investments in capital equipment and such that will position them for growth and profit. I predict a symbolic and small decrease in the QE at the next meeting, maybe 5 or 10 billion in purchases less, and a 10 or 15 billion decrease in each succeeding month, until QE is zero. When they actually make that symbolic taper next month, it will be taken as an encouraging sign that money is about to flow and it therefore, will. The Fed will be entertaining thoughts of adding back a half percent to the interest rate by spring, and we will be at 1 or 2 percent by your summertime mark. Regards again, TAR2

Overtone, I really do think your reluctance to associate with ALL republicans, translates realistically into you not wanting to associate with anybody. Really. Do a recount. Put everybody that has done something bad or stupid, or iladvised or that had good intentions but things did not work out, on one side, and all those that are NOT human on the other, and you will be alone in the NOT human pile, by yourself. Then take all the people that have done something good, solved a problem, built something, made a sacrifice, contributed to society, followed the rules, accepted reality, and dealt with it, and made it better for everybody else, took responsibility for their own lives and made this world a better place for themselves and their kids and you will find that more than 280,000,000 did it, regardless of the fact, that you know better than them how to do it properly. Bulldinky Overtone. You are talking Bulldinky. You are the fantasy world dreamer. I am not destroying your dream. I am trying to make your reality work, by making my reality, that includes you, work. Count up all your enemies and you will find, I am 100 percent sure, that they have built and are maintaining the reality you depend on to live. And by the way. That goes for me as well, and everybody else. The world consists primarily of people other than oneself. And the most of us are doing the best we can, to do it right. Regards, TAR2

Overtone, Wow. Talk about defining an unrealistic, impassable, dividing line, that separates those that are this county and those that wish to destroy it. I am afraid you have to be mistaken. You are forgetting that according to some right wing extremist Muslims, the U.S. is the great Satan. That is every last living one of us, that is evil. If you believe in the American Way, you ARE Satan. If you don't believe in the American Way, but you live here, you STILL are Satan. Forget it Overtone. I am neither as foolish, or evil, or stupid as you suggest(well maybe stupid, since I used the word neither, followed by three things). And your speech to me is hateful and scary, and got me a little riled. I know I have enemies in this world. Like the ones that took down the twin towers. But you? I didn't expect YOU! (In the words of Monte Python "nobody expects the spanish inquisition".) I think you should recount your friends and enemies, if little ole TAR is on your enemy list. TAR You sound to me like someone that would take a jet airplane ride to a global warming convention, and still consider you are blameless and the oil companies are your enemy. If nothing else, I think we answered the thread question, and all now know why we have an impass in Washington. Because EVERYBODY is pigheaded and thinks they are not, and the other side of the aisle is trying to destroy the country. Its been fun and instructive, but I think I'm about finished here. Its too damn depressing to see so many red minus boxes.

There are three registered democrats, two republicans, and an unaffiliated in my profile picture. I love them all, as I do my country. I associate with them all, bear responsibility for them all, and reap the benefit of their services to the country, their schools, their place of employment, and to the humanity they touch. I extend this feeling of kinship to all my countrymen, and give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and my trust and admiration and association, unless and 'til they fail to reciprocate.

Overtone, You are probably right, that I have confused you with a British socialist that was on the thread earlier. But it was your list of evil doers, that included Greenspan, that made me lump you in with Republican haters. My point was that you are not allowed to hate the power structure of the U.S. AND love the country they have put together. The military industrial complex is the exact same one that allows Clinton to use cruise missles, or W. or Obama. They are OUR cruise missles, in any case. I stopped watching Fox years ago. I hate their spin. If I am saying anything that sounds like I am parroting FOX, it is accidental in nature, or reflects perhaps something sensible Fox might be arguing, since I consider myself a sensible fellow. I also dislike Gore, not because he wants to save the planet, but because he is aligned with the anti-zionists and the news organisation that raked U.S. policy, the CIA, and the U.S. military/industrial complex, over the coals, with talk of Bush's Warmongering, American Hegemony, and capitalist greed for oil. I agree with almost everbody here that the tea party is using bad bad judgment and tactics, and cutting off their own nose to spite their face. But I will not allow wrongdoers in my party to define me or my intentions and opinions, nor will I stop expressing my opinions on what would be sensible and advisable to avoid doing, or to do, based on the fact that I am registered Republican. I campaigned for McGovern in New Hampshire, I have a college education, and am reasonably intelligent. Some of my best friends are democrat (including my Father, Step Mother, Aunt, Sister and departed Mother.) I like neither Bachman or Hillary, for different reasons. Excuse me for confusing you with someone else, but please allow me to have my own biases and dislikes, opinions, questions, and concerns without calling me a right wing fanatic. I make this plea, because it appears that this all or nothing mentality is what is fueling the impass in Washington, causing everybody to completely disassociate with the other party, harden their stance on their own principles, and forget that we made this mess together, and it will take us getting back together, to clean it up. The economy is a social thing. Confidence in each other, trust in each other, in the end is what makes it work. And people will not always do the most ethical moral thing. (for instance Enron, and those Louisiana folk who emptied the Wallmart shelves when they found their electronic debit cards had no credit limit). Neither example should cause us to doubt the humanity and goodness of the most of us. And the 90 percent of us that are not evil, criminal and unethical, should get together, and stay together, and talk out our differences of opinion. Regards, TAR2 I think we might all have a little Erkle in us, enough perhaps to point to a mess and say humbly and timidly and apologetically "Did I do that?".

Overtone, Thanks for attempting to answer my questions. It points out to me, that your idealogy is just as blinding as the idealogy of a person that would say "keep government out of my Medicare". Tell me exactly how one would go about having a banking system, without banks. Tell me exactly how one would go about providing insurance, without an insurance company. Tell me exactly how one would go about creating medicine without the drug companies. Tell me exactly how power and money "should" be aquired, and what idealogy that power and money should serve. I think we have already, as a country, developed banks, so we could have credit cards, and school loans, and buy houses and start businesses, and fund projects to build and maintain our infrastructure. Our system is based on merit and effort, and the promise to repay already. There are good people in leadership positions, and subordinate positions, all over our nation, doing banking, and by the way, OUR bidding. They are creating something of value, to the rest of us. It allows each of us to have economic power, by borrowing it from someone else, who we intent to repay for the favor. We can neither default on the loans we individually took, or default on the loans we took as a town, or a state, or a country. We can't default in a couple of days. We took loans we promised to repay. But also we can not call the banking system evil, when we created it for our own purposes in the first place. Regards, TAR2

Overtone, How are the banks evil, and the Fed not? How does your greed for the wealthy's money, differ from their greed for yours? How does one person aquire wealth sustainalbly, if they themself are not creating any value? How does federally subsidised insurance make any societal sense, or economic sense? Is AIG evil or good, in your estimation? Should the Dutch happen to live below sea level, should the rest of the world subsidize their efforts to keep the sea out? Should New Orleans happen to live below sea level, should the rest of the country subsidize their efforts to keep the sea out? Should the Army Corp of Engineers rebuild the Jersey Shore? How much should the rest of the country subsidize the effort? How much should we as a country subsidize flood insurance on the Jersey Shore? Is insurance a good thing or a bad thing in your estimation? Who should pay the premiums? Who should subsidize the payment of the premiums for those who can not afford it? Who bails out the insurance company when disaster strikes? Who pays the higher premiums required in the aftermath, when the rates go justifiably up? What restrictions and rules are the payers of the insurance entitled to impose on the property they indemnify? If we indemnify everybody, against all evil, the premiums will be high. Do we have the money to pay the premiums? Or should we just go ahead and do it, and send the bill to our children? Regards, TAR2 Perhaps we should send some representatives to Washington to decide what is in our best interests, as a country. To avoid unwittingly perpetrating a Ponzi scheme upon our kids.

iNow, No single snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche. They all contributed. Trying to prove that snowflake 6,845,495 had no role in the avalanche is in my opinion, quite narrowminded. The tea party may have concerns. The fact that they should not be using the tactics they are using, the fact that there might be bigotry and hatred and stupidity included in the tea party movement, does not mean that any of the concerns themselves, are not worth discussing. And concerns about the government reaching into ALL areas of our lives, are concerns I have as well, even though I would like to disassociate myself ideologically from the uglier components of the tea party. jduff, and the end of the worlders, are not approaching this, from a sustainable tact, but neither are the liberals who think our society can do just fine by having the rich not only provide most of the jobs, but provide for everyone without one. Under such a liberal plan, (admittedly overstated, but with every program and law we move a step closer), the capable and industrious and risk takers, take on dual responsibilty. Once to serve society by doing their part, and then again, by serving society by doing the part of those who are not rich. ---- Separate topic (but still referring to the shutdown). There is much catching up, that we as a society have to do, to get to the point where we should be, where all men are indeed created equal. Where talent and ability, education and trustworthyness of equal portions found in a black man, and a white man, and a mexican woman, all going after the same job, would find all three with equal chances of getting the job. That is the law, but its not reality yet. Money still talks. Ivy league connections still talk. Hiring from your own is still the natural human thing to do. Black decision makers might tend toward blacks. Women decision makers might tend toward women. Gay decision makers might tend toward gays. And it is OBVIOUS to me that the golf club crowd, tends toward the golf club crowd. We still have a priveledged class, and some of us are in, and some of us are out, even if we are white, educated, male, talented and trustworthy, but have not joined the club, from lack of money, or connections, or desire to take on the risks and responsibilities and stresses of being responsible for other people's lives. So maybe Republicans as a whole are people we should have some respect for, since many are our bosses anyway. They include leaders of business, and social organisations, and banks. These people should not be marginalized or discounted as lowlifes and bigots and mindless sheep. They are instead the ones we count on to be there, doing the things they do. We can't say OMG OMG OMG we want equality NOW NOW NOW, and think we can achieve it, by passing a law. Laws help. But the real changes come one hiring at a time, and one heart at a time. Regards, TAR2

jduff, I don't think you're looking at this right. You imagine that 99% of us, are friends, which we are, and then proceed to build fantasies of plots against you administered by 99% of the people, which don't have your exact view of the world. I absolutely DO NOT want the Fed to be desolved. I absolutely do not want the excellence we have obtained in all areas of human endevor to be thrown away, on me or you or anyone else, feeling a little marginalize or out of control of the world. You see, you cannot both build an image that everybody is for you AND that everybody is against you. I have an issue, personally, at my company. We bought a big, well run sales and service organisation, which, having world class leadership, and processes, and "best practice" ways of doing things, was given the purse strings, and proceeded to dismember our way of doing things, and replaced much of the "old school" people that our organisation consisted of. Long story to deliniate all the "problems", all the marginalization of what I considered the important and valuable aspects of both our business, and the human judgement that made it work. I, like you, am skeptical about "drinking the kool-aid" and submitting to an unhuman "system". But, it is still my company, and considering the folks that are now running the place, as "them", and not "us", is not helpful. When the president has an "initiative", it becomes my initiative, and its my job, to do my job in such a way that it both fulfills the initiative AND relies on me doing all the things I know to be right to do. Difficult when "stupid" things are done, or things that wipe out old understandings and working systems, to install this more "efficient" tool, that takes more manpower, money and attention to institute, than to do it the "old way", just to wind up continuing to get the job done, inspite of the new tool, not because of it. BUT, I have also noticed that things DO work better if you "see the point" that the new thing has been brought in to do. Turns out, it is EXACTLY the thing that YOU yourself wanted to do, only now you can do it more quickly, and with better coordination with the rest of your organisation. Your human judgement is still required, but you have the assistance of everybody else's as well. So be careful with your assignment of "we" and "they". You cannot love the world, except for those daft Chinese. Regards, TAR2 If you destroy the Fed, its my Fed you have destroyed, you become my enemy. And I am currently your friend. So the divorce would be completely your fault. The "we" side is already established. We have been working on it since 1776. DONT shut us down. Besides, there is no "type" of person that constitutes 99% of the population, so whatever type you are, should not, and cannot define your image of "we". Not when you are talking about a country with a resident population of 316,842,000 people. If you are a white anglo-saxon protestant male and that is the only "type" that you are counting as we, you are quite outnumbered, by other "types". If you are upset that a white anglo-saxon protestant male is not in the Whitehouse, then you do not believe in democracy.

jduff, I think the best option we have, is to stay together. Whatever comes. That is why we are called the United States. I think it not wise to think you can protect your farm against the world. When I was young I used to imagine having a tank, safe from most any attackers that would protect me from the Soviets and any other attacker. I felt this would give me independence and safety. I finally figured out, that even the tank could be defeated, in any number of ways, and dropped the image. The best way to go, was to rely on the public bomb shelters being built, and the stores of canned and packaged food being amassed, and to hope that our collective anti missle system would work and stop the threats. I learned that the U.S. is full of people already working to make everybody safe, keep everybody free from tyranny, and generally help each other maintain a structure and environment where we could make things as good as we together, could make things good. Any one of us is 100 times, a thousand times, a million times, better off, than we would be without the rest of the U.S. and the world around us. Prior comeing back to the thread this evening, and hearing your plan, I was thinking about iNows question to me, as to what would I rather was done by the Fed, than what they are planning to do, on a data dependent basis. I didn't have an answer, and I was starting to see his point, and now after hearing your plan, I think I completely see his point. We already have the Fed, doing our bidding. They are the BEST there is, to run the Federal Reserve Bank, and monetary policy. And that is the job we have given them. They already are considering all the concerns I have raised and all the democrats have raised, and all the republicans have raised and all the questions raised by their counterparts, around the world. Our banks needed time to recapitalize. Privite citizens needed time to recapitalize. Cut down on debt and increase their savings, AND we needed fiscal stimulus, AND we needed lower than low interest rates to keep the place from locking up in fear. As has already been pointed out to you, your fear, and my fear, is not helpful. What is required is our confidence and our efforts to build the best and sell it to the world and each other, and buy the best, from everybody else that makes it for us. Not to try and sabatoge the system we have together built and maintained, but to trust each other, to do our jobs and make it work as best we can make it work, for our own good, and for the good of everyone else reliant on it working. Still leaves room for improvement, and comprimise, breaking down barriers that cause inequities, and tightening up areas of the system that are being abused. or that have grown too big for their britches. To elimnate prograns that have outlived their usefullness or have morphed undesireably from their orignal purpose. But the MOST important thing, is to do it together. We cannot do it without the farmer, or the banker, or the doctor or the lawyer, or the teacher, or the builder, or the saleman or the researcher or the technician or the specialist, or the performer. Its all of us together that make it work. What we need therefore, is not fear, not blame, not jealousy and disrespect...but trust. Trust in the capable to continue doing their part, and for everyone to be applying their best efforts and best ideas, with the goal of making society work, for everybody involved. Otherwise, out there on the farm, you will have no weather report and won't know when to plant and harvest, cover and protect. You will have no seed, no gas, no fertilixer, no parts for the tractor, no nails to put the shutters back on, when they blow off. You will live in constant fear, because you will not know what is over the next rise, and wouldn't have a cavalry to come to your rescue or a doctor to go to if a weird green fog rolled over the hill. Or a hoard of slightly better armed folks came your way, to take what was yours. No police to call, remember, you divorce us all, when you take the independence course. Regards, TAR2 And you would have no one to complain to or talk to, or question and learn from on scienceforums.net.

Additional "culprits" in the crash, where complicated instruments, packages of loans, that "contained" various amounts of sub-prime loans, and therefore were not worth full value. Sorting this all out and marking to market or not marking to marking, writing down the loans and taking losses, the inability of loan garanteeors to obtain the cash to cover the losses, etc. etc. caused the chain affect, and subsequent failure of certain institutions. But they did not call it the sub-prime crisis, for no reason. It was the "bad" subprime loans, that were at the root. So any complicity we as a nation had in having those loans originated, is still a valid concern, in determining the "cause" of the crisis.

Who has paid the piper, who is paying the piper, and who has yet to pay the piper? So what's your point? That the banks are crucial to our banking system? We already know that. And acting within both the intent and the letter of the law is required, and when the law or intent is broken, we can not abide by it. This still leaves us responsible for setting the rules, within which the banks should operate. And still leaves us responsible for any unsustainable or irrational or unintended conditions that arise. We still have to "keep it real", and operate with the understanding that if we ask for trouble, we are liable to get it. So why ask for trouble? Why engage in unrealistic manuevers, whose negative consequences should be able to be forseen? Pizza hut, somewhere over in Asia, had a problem with their "one dish" salad bar, when it became quite a fad and challenge for patons to build elaborate towers and works of art out of courses of cucumbers with carrot scaffolding, which completely bypassed the intent of the rule, but adhered to the letter, since only one plate was at the base. Pizza Hut, closed the salad bar. Never underestimate people's creativity and ability to counter the intent of a law, if staying within the letter is all that you are counting on. So conversely, if our intent was to make home ownership available to people who realistically could not afford home ownership, and both the intent and the letter of the law were followed, and the effort wound up failing, and causing a crisis, any wrongdoing, or self interested actions on the part of banks or loan originators which "caused" the crisis, are secondary, to the initial intent, which forced unrealistic demands onto the system. We wanted to do something that turned out to be impossible to do, because it made no economic sense. The banks "had to" charge higher interest to riskier loans and this in turn made them harder to pay back, and all the insurance in the world, government guarenteed or not, was not enough to pay the piper, when the loan defaults began to mount. Hey. I have a procedural objection. When I just posted, I already had a negative on my post. Which must have been to my piper comment, which was meant to be a addendum to a previous post, but was part of my last post which was contructed as a response to iNows cross post. Just as clarification, the negative point may be refering to the first line, the piper comment, which was made before, or during iNows post. Everything after the first line, was constructed after iNows, post, and may or may not deserve any pluses or minus, but should be taken as "starting from" the -1 of the piper line.

iNow, "As investigative reporters and Congress' Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have all shown, it was deregulation mixed with irresponsible and potentially illegal practices by private firms on Wall Street that caused both the bubble and the collapse." I read a little of the links. I have heard the arguments before. I was alive and aware during the last 60 years. I don't disagree with the above, but saying these things were causal does not remove our reponsibility and complicity in creating the regulatory and financial and societal framework in which economic power can be created or assigned, without the proper human understood capital to back it up. We are humans, and our economy is a social thing. Power is central, as Galbraith suggests, in the equation. We cringe when economic power is stolen, by deciept or force. We question it as a "wrong" thing, when economic power given by us, is misapplied, and contrary to our intent in the agreement. Its a breach of social contract. When mom and pop put their money in the bank, and are paid interest to keep it there so others can borrow it and pay interest to start a business or get some education or buy a house or a car or a refrigerator and pay some interest and promise to replace the money eventually, we have a banking system. There is collateral involved. Human promises and agreement, carefully documented as to who has control of the resources involved and who will regain, gain, or lose that value in the event of a breech of contract or default. Banks create money in a way so simple, we cannot link it up with human promises. They can loan out more money, more value, than is represented by mom and pop's deposit. This creates a velocity of money, a multiplying effect, where more businesses can be started, more refrigerators can be purchased, more student's can pay tuititon, than if only the amount of mom and pops deposit was available. Hence the banks through law and agreement, amplify the economic value and power of mom and pop's deposit, but the deposit has to exist, and has to be honored. The loan has to be repayed. If loans are given out and they are too risky, and are hence NOT payed back, the bank has failed to properly assign control of mom and pop's economic power to the receiver of the loan. The bankers "caused" the subprime crisis by too much leverage. Creating value that was not properly backed up and putting it in the control of parties that did not have the where-with-all to repay. But the parties that failed to repay are not immune from complicity in the disaster. Their failure to repay was also a "cause" that created the crash. If one dollar in deposits can back 10 dollars in loans, the failure to repay 1 dollar in loans, wipes out the value represented by one dollar of deposits (which are backing 10 dollars of loans, each). This causes a rather big issue, when a large percentage of loan takers default. And we have been scrambling to rebuild the equity, since. So it is NOT a myth, that providing mortgages to people who could not repay, was causal in the crisis. Regards, TAR2 There is plenty of blame to spread around. So when I ask you "whose" econmic power is being weilded when Bernake buys 65 billion in securities and loans, and takes those potentially "bad" assets onto the left side of the balance sheet, and balances them with the liability of 65billion in U.S. dollars which wind up in someone's control, I am asking whose deposit is at risk, and who is responsible for repayment. That is what I "do not understand". And that is the question which YOU have not answered. What wild swings of wealth and value and ownership of risk and responsibility are created? Who winds up controlling the wealth, and is it appropriate? Has AIG "replaced" the value that was risked and lost? And if so, why are they still solvent? They pledged to cover the losses with the insurance they offered to the banks. Whose deposit of wealth was lost? In the end. Or have we not yet reached the end? Have any debts been forgiven? And if so, on whose authority, and whose deposits have been devalued or lost?

iNow, Well I certainly would rather see the talent in charge, in charge of the Fed, than see me in charge. But no one, in any walk of life, at any level of reading and intelligence, can understand all the consequences of every decision and action and non-action they take. We generally try and avoid the mistakes of the past. And try to repeat the successes. There are different types in the Fed. Hawks and Doves. The hawks are not evil and the doves are good. Or vice a versa. There are different metrics to consider at the Fed, as surely as there are different metrics to consider in Congress, or different metrics to consider when swansonT and I look at the same chart. But I am not completely ignorant on the topic. I listen to Bloomberg, I watch the market, I was an Accounting major for a short time in college, I took Economics courses and Business Law and graduated with a Business Degree. I often spoke person to person with an accomplished economist who lived in an apartment building where I was a building maintanence man, back in my college days. Long talks, and I worked for him briefly, helping him organize his library and papers. I was even invited to watch a Fed meeting of some sort at my school library. I don't remember the Economist's name, nor the level of Fed meeting I attended, nor certainly the details or nature of the meeting, but there might be some things about economics and the operation of the Fed, that I am accidently holding in my subconscious mind, something I might know, that raises concern in my mind about the current QE going on to long, that you should not characterise simply and only as me feeling "icky" about it. My "feelings" might have some basis fact, and might be indicative of my desire to make sense out of the situation, taking all that I know, and care about, and all the "metrics" that I am currently considering at many different levels of human behavior and human interaction. And I do not know how the dates of the QEs you referenced corresponded with a longer than a decade period in recent Japanese economic history where there was very little growth, for a long time, while they had a negative real interest rate environment (I traveled to Japan several times in that period and saw the "employment" of men and woman as billboards, wearing the sandwich signs), or how your German dates correspond to the "wheelbarrows of cash" it took to buy a sandwich. This thread is about whether or not we should replace the bums currently in Washington, and replace them with a new set of bums, that might accidently do a better job at representing us. So our leadership, and the nature of it, who is capable and trustworthy, and who is not, is what we are debating. My take, my opinion, holds no special weight. I have no particular credentials, no particular facts, no superior view of how to run the place. Just trying to make sense of it, like the rest of us, and make sure we don't cut off our nose, to spite our face, and slide down one slippery slope, to avoid sliding down a different one. It is obvious to all of us that the tea party is to blame for this. AND it is obvious to all of us that the President has the power and the responsibilty to lead our Nation out of this. I'm thinking he will, because I trust his capability and intent. I trust the capability of the Fed. But this does not mean I don't think Obama is too socialist in lean, or that the Fed is not using a potentially problematic tool, and there will come a point at which we must pay the piper. Regards, TAR2 And don't forget that Janet Yellen, while being the best woman for the job, was AT the helm out West, as a Fed Governor, at ground zero of the subprime crisis, and admits to some mistakes or at least to some actions that might have been taken, that were not. Government support and programs, intended to allow everyone to be a home owner, resulted in some large number of people getting into mortages they could not afford. It was everybody's fault. No one considered that people should not be "given" a weight they can not pick up, on their own. Fed chairman, has grown in to a position that amounts to the individual in that position, being the most powerful person in the world. I am questioning this, with the dual question of not only whether or not this power should be "given" to an individual, but is this a weight that anybody could pick up, on their own. Saw today, that my company, a global company, had yearly sales of 23 billion dollars. There are a tremendous amount of industrious and capable people, toiling for a year, to design and build and perfect and sell and maintain the equipment and processes we sell and maintain. Whole organisation, many families, much economic activity. 23 billion a year. 65 billion a month, with a stroke of pen, "cause we need it" to avoid depression? What does that mean? Where is the sense and reality in that. How can they know what massive shifts in value and ownership of "real" wealth, such an "experiment" will cause?

iNow, I watched the market reaction to the Feds announcement of their intention to begin tapering in Sept. Interest rates went up, the market went down. A Fed governor made a statement that it might not be until Oct. and the market went up and the rates came down. The original plan to begin tapering the purchases in sept and complete the tapering by January, leaving us with the still accomidative half percent interest rate for fed funds, was not well received by the market. No economic data caused the rise and fall of rates and asset prices. Just the statements of the Fed. Just the THOUGHT of not having the Fed purchasing was enough to spook the market So why is the market up 15 percent this year. Because the economy is 15% stronger, or because of the half a trillion dollars of purchases boosting asset prices and lowering interest rates.? So no, I have no proof that the economy would stall or continue going, now or in 2014 if QE began to taper, at this point or that. But your crystal ball is no clearer than the Feds or mine. If the data gets worse, instead of better, what does the Fed do? Increase to 100 billion a month? And perhaps I am saying the same words as waitforufo, but I have a different intent. And a different question, from a different angle, at a different level. I don't want the Fed to fail, nor do I want them to continue this course. I don't understand it, and neither do they. They have not done this before. They don't know how all the players in the game will react, and they can not orchestrate the reaction. We are in uncharted territory. Staying in uncharted territory until the middle of next year will expand their balance sheet by another half a trillion dollars, and they already don't know when or how to unwind what they have, nor the reaction the economy will have to their unwinding. Will the Fed become the defacto owner of every government backed security that is written? What would that mean? Who would owe who what money, if we all worked for the Fed. (since I consider that my largest monthly outlay is to the bank, and I consider that therefore I am working for the bank, if the Fed holds my mortgage, I would then be working for the Fed, and paying them with the dollars, that are their liability.) That just doesn't make any sense to me. I just can't find the owner of the house, in that equation. It's too different from the normal rules, and mandate of the Fed, to regulate the money supply. Its, its, its...like crazy talk. Regards, TAR2

iNow, It was me that used the QE eternity phrase. I think waitforufo is arguing this from a position I do not agree with, and what you have to argue with me is of a different nature, than what you have to argue with waitforufo about. I am the "which slippery slope do you want to avoid" guy. I am the "lets not get dependent on unsustainable stuff" guy. I am the "lets open government and sit down and talk this thing out" guy. I think Obama is an intelligent, pragmatic, wonderful leader, that has handled our near depression and all the peices of it, as masterfully as Bernake handled his part. They both took bold and unique action and pulled our fat out of the fire. We are however, no longer in need of the pain medication, and in fact are now addicted to it. Its time to consider stage two. How do we regain self sufficiency, to the point where we don't need fiscal stimulus, or Fed extraordinary measures, to keep the gears turning? You say we can't quit cold turkey, or we will get the shakes. We have been growing at 1 or 2 percent now, for quite a few years. Corporations have record amounts of cash. The stock market is up this year 15 percent. Small business is handcuffed by high tax rates and government edicts, which have caused many to hire workers at 32 hours a week. Many have used up state unemployment and are on to federal. Jobs are needed. Enterprise is needed. A climate that fosters entrepeneurship, effort, innovation, risk taking, and investment in promising enterprises is required. Suckling on the Federal Reserve cow is not sustainable, it was an emergency measure. Suckling on the Federal Government cow is not advisable either, because we, the tax payer ARE the cow. We have to individually, and as enterprises, create wealth, through idea and plan, effort and risk. Its the only real way to do it. Its the only sustainable way to do it. And we are back to where we are. Where you have your providers and your dependents, the providers complaining the dependents are too needy and the dependents complaining that the providers are too stingy. Regards, TAR2

On the doG, swansonT chart. I count 2trillion in increases when the congress is republican. I count 4 trillion when the congress is split. I count 6 trillion when the congress is democrat. Regardless of the president, the congress makes the appropriations and is the body responsible for hammering out the budget. The best budgetary time was under Clinton when the congress was split or republican. The worst is under Obama, when the congress is democrat or split. The chart also does not show the last several years, when either the democrats were in control of the house, or it was split, but was also under Obama as president. During his Presidency our debt has gone from around 12 to well over 16 billion. Showing a few more bars on the chart, bringing things up to date would describe the parabolic, scary nature of the increase in spending. Sumarizing the chart as it is, not in terms of president, but in terms of controll of congress. The Republicans increase the debt by about a quarter billion a year. Split congress raises the debt by about .4 billion a year. Democrats raise at about .5 a year. Adding the last two and half years to the chart, would raise this number for the democrats and possibly the split. So barring any study of the crisis of the year that the country faced, invasion of Kuwait, war on Iraq, 9/11 or the subprime crisis, it looks best to have a democratic president and a republican controlled congress, when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It also looks to me like teaming up the president, with a democratically controlled congress results in runaway spending. iNow, I am not a NOW NOW OMG OMG type of guy. You must have me confused with someone else. Although I do see patterns and directions and look for the sense and reality of a situation. When things get out of control, you need to look for ways to reign them back in. If not now, when? is my question. I understand and watch the Fed too. What they are doing is "working" to the point that if they stopped doing it, now, it would cause problems. I am just pointing out, that we do not want this to be a permanent situation, and they thought the first QE would get us roaring in 6 months, as they did on the second, and the third. We don't actually know if this strategy will work, because its never been tried before, and it has not worked yet. Regards, TAR2 Sorry I had billion in there were I meant trillion.

Waitforufo, I think you are being quite stupid about this. We have worked our government into every area of our lives. The effects of the shutdown were instantaneous to many hundreds of thousands of us. And we rely on our government to keep things right in too many areas for a shutdown not to hurt people and the economy, more and more each day. Keeping our food and drugs safe and of high quality, fighting the war on terror, and drugs, and illiteracy. Keeping our businesses honest, and assisting the handicapped and the Veterans that have fought our wars. Funding University Research Projects in science and technology that provide us with better health and tools and processes for years to come. Our government serves us. They are doing our bidding. It is not THEM that is shut down. It is US. It might not have affected you personally yet, but it affected me greatly the moment it happened. Its MY government that is shut down, and I do not wish it to be. I have my opinions as to how it could be run a little differently, with more stress on personal responsibilty and accountablity, and less on creating dependency, but that does not mean I don't love this nation, and ALL it stands for in the world. The rule of law. Human rights. Equality. The best there is in just about every area of human endevour you can think of. To the tea party, all I have to say is stop embarrassing me, and give me my country back. We will work out the details, man and woman to man and woman, as we have always done. Regards, TAR2 And absolutely DO NOT push this lunacy to the Debt Ceiling. You are playing with the full faith and credit of the US. That's OUR country, you dimwits. Hey, here's a novel idea. When we have a difference of opinion on exactly how we should procede, let's vote on it. Put up a clean CR and let's see how it goes.