What happens when you pass oppressive anti-immigration laws? You get what you wish for.

[Mac1337]

Acer wrote:

There are 13 million people out of work in the USA.
How many openings for rural lettuce pickers and urban Kroger stockers are there?

Nobody said every unemployed worker should pick lettuce but it just doesn't make sense for someone to receive unemployment when down the road a farmer needs workers. Interestingly, if you listen to Obama every unemployed should be able to build roads and bridges because that is all he has.

[DaviDC.]

"...a roll of food stamps in your pocket.."
What?!? Where the fck do you live? "Food stamps" are delivered in the form of a debit card these days.

[Mac1337]

Been waiting for you. What took you so long? I throw those lines in my posts to catch people like you. People who wet themselves over typos and what not and ignore the main point.

[kj]

Acer wrote:
"There are plenty of jobs if people weren't so lazy" thing looks good in a conservative newsletter, but the math is just not there.

There are 13 million people out of work in the USA.
How many openings for rural lettuce pickers and urban Kroger stockers are there?

These low rent jobs are not plentiful enough to fill the gap, and low rent jobs do not pay enough to drive the economic engine of this country, which depends on consumers consuming.

Yes, you can get by on poverty wages. But after utilities, food and rent, you're not going to have much leftover for the high-margin gadgets and luxuries where the REAL money is for our economy.

That's just it, I was making the point that people making "poverty wages" aren't necessarily living in poverty. As far as everyone driving the economy by buying high-margin gadgets and luxuries; that was then, this is now. It may never be like that again. And considering how it happened (abuse of credit), I'm not sure it should. kj.

[RgrF]

The conservative mind set sees "abuse of credit", the reality is that much money was made by people who decided to "market' that credit as a commodity to be exchanged.

While it's true that folks shouldn't buy property or other things they cannot afford, it's more true that financial institutions should not have abandoned their fiduciary responsibility by granting loans to anyone who could not reasonably be expected to repay those loans.

To place the onus on those who accepted these loan offers is to deny the responsibility of the lending agents.

[Lux Interior]

kj wrote: As far as everyone driving the economy by buying high-margin gadgets and luxuries; that was then, this is now. It may never be like that again. And considering how it happened (abuse of credit), I'm not sure it should.

So, you blame the middle class and agree that it should die?

It's the middle class that drives the growth in the economy. The explosive growth of AAPL would not have happened without a large segment of the population that could afford iPods, etc. It wasn't abuse of credit that bought those ipods, it was disposable income, which the middle class has.

[RgrF]

Lux Interior wrote:
[quote=kj]As far as everyone driving the economy by buying high-margin gadgets and luxuries; that was then, this is now. It may never be like that again. And considering how it happened (abuse of credit), I'm not sure it should.

So, you blame the middle class and agree that it should die?

It's the middle class that drives the growth in the economy. The explosive growth of AAPL would not have happened without a large segment of the population that could afford iPods, etc. It wasn't abuse of credit that bought those ipods, it was disposable income, which the middle class has had.

[Mac1337]

RgrF wrote:


While it's true that folks shouldn't buy property or other things they cannot afford, it's more true that financial institutions should not have abandoned their fiduciary responsibility by granting loans to anyone who could not reasonably be expected to repay those loans.

Why do you care about the risk if you can sell the mortgage to suckers like fannie and freddie?

[kj]

RgrF wrote:
The conservative mind set sees "abuse of credit", the reality is that much money was made by people who decided to "market' that credit as a commodity to be exchanged.

While it's true that folks shouldn't buy property or other things they cannot afford, it's more true that financial institutions should not have abandoned their fiduciary responsibility by granting loans to anyone who could not reasonably be expected to repay those loans.

To place the onus on those who accepted these loan offers is to deny the responsibility of the lending agents.

I didn't blame anyone. Either way it's abuse of credit. The middle class may look increasingly different, but it's going to persist. Yes, it fueled apple's explosive growth, but that was then. People may have less to spend on luxuries like the iPhone. Life will go on. But trying to maintain the drunken-sailor consumerism most of us participated in is going to make things more difficult for us, and our children. Fwiw, I could give you a hundred examples from my own experience where home equity loans, an 8th credit card, etc. provided the means to buy stuff like iPhones. I think it might be hard to argue our economy has been fueled by legit disposable income. kj.

[RgrF]

So by not placing blame you absolve all parties and have no fucking idea what caused the current crunch? Give it a break kj. No one with a brain could accept that analysis.