12 Responses to “Republicans and the stock market”

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1. golfdoc
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   and it was the democrats who pushed for the rights of home ownership for everyone, whether they could afford it or not. also, don’t forget the tech bubble created under clinton’s watch and greenspan’s incompetence, even though gore claimed to invent the internet. there is plenty of blame for both sides to go around. i’d just rather have choice to determine my life’s path instead of the government running it.

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2. Willis_Leon_Johnson
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 12:18 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   Before anybody votes democratic, remember-they’re the ones that broke the Social Security Trust Fund in 1968 and since then has spent an estimated 16 TRILLION dollars of your descendants money.

   How does it feel knowing that you robbed generations, as yet unborn, of their future earnings and livelihood?

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3. oneperson
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 1:24 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   For all those willing to “blame the buyer” routine, please read the following: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27121535/

   The problem was unaldultered greed give a free ride by regulators who refused to regulate. At least get your facts straight.

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4. bullishfrog
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   The Republicans did not want to put social security in the stock market. That is an ignorant statement. The Rrepublicans wanted to give each participant, the option, to put a portion of his, and only his, personal contributions in a small number of options, not unlike what most individuals have today with their 401-K. The bulk of contributions would still go into the system as they do today. No one would be forced to participate. Democrats opposed this proposal outright because they could not tolerate having republicans take credit for anything that would help fix the social security system. They would rather continue to issue misleading statements, like the writer of this letter has done. Will Democrats now insist, given the current bear market, that 401-K plans not allow individuals to put a portion of their contributions in the stock market?

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5. david_cox
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 2:05 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   Republican vs Democrat is like a man vs his wife, they may seem logically separate but they are in practice one in the same. Unless they’re lying to eachother and then they’ll break up. I think this may be what we are seeing now, the breakup. The beautiful thing about the breakup is that we will be open to seeing a whole new republican and democratic party. That sounds very good to me. Those democrats and republicans we have in their now are a bunch of lying whores who I want a divorce from. But like any lying whore, they are definitely both going to want half my assets. I find this laughable.

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6. Ullr
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   David - If you want a divorce from both Republicans and Democrats, who would you put in their places - certainly not Libertarians, the same people who would prohibit the government from printing currency and minting coins (they would have all currency issued by private banks), and want all public lands (including national parks) opened up to private homesteading.

   If anyone wants to read a true prescription for total anarchy, read the official 2004 Libertarian Party national platform (available on the net).

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7. david_cox
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 8:55 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   I don’t agree with the Libertarian Party on a few different subjects, one being purest Libertarian ideology, ie no national parks etc. I also think that the transition back to a market of competing currencies would have to be slowly and deliberately accomplished, any other transition would be catastrophic to the economy. I would put honest and transparent politicians such as myself in their place. Thanks for asking, you make me feel important.

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8. Ullr
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 10:08 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   David - How do you feel about official Libertarian positions such as the abolition of the Securities and Exchange Commission, all laws and regulations prohibiting “insider” trading, abolition of the public education system and ending all government involvement in mental health programs?

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9. david_cox
   Posted October 12th, 2008 at 10:11 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

   Thank goodness Congress approved that bailout. Otherwise, the economy might be tanking.

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10. david_cox
    Posted October 12th, 2008 at 10:23 pm  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

    Very long transition to such realities that you list as components of libertarianism Ullr, but yes, I believe they are highly recommended. An anarchist society would look nothing like our own because it is a Utopian dream. Therefore, condemning it because we don’t have a clue about the exact route there or what it would look like or how it would function doesn’t make any sense. Condemning it and refusing to consider it would be like flatly denying the possibility of any theory, by denying any thought or consideration of it you prohibit yourself to learn something new. There are pragmatic ideas and methods to start in the direction of pure freedom, or anarchism, that not only will solve problems in the short term but will also avert major long term negative consequences of centralized federal socialism. A good example is moving the school system toward a voucher based system and exchanging the income tax for a non-business consumption sales tax. These are modest moves and would benefit all in a relatively non-turbulent implementation period.

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11. golfdoc
    Posted October 13th, 2008 at 12:31 am  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

    for #8, davids comments. i would have personally seen no bailouts for anyone. however, if you are in gov’t positions or businesses that create these melttdowns, you should have all your monetary worth stripped from you individually with add’l salaries, bonuse, options going to a shareholder fund. then its time to prosecute.i hope chain gang work detail is still being used for a hards day of work. then an evening of unwinding by “servicing” other menbers that are incarcerated. why i don’t like the bailoutis: has our gov’t ever done anything to improve our lot in society. not that i know of.

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12. RLaitres
    Posted October 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am  Login to Send PM  Report this comment  

    Many have posted that all CEO’s and other ’senior executives’ should be stripped of their ill-gotten gains. While I would agree that they should, there does not appear to be any legal basis for doing so. That is quite understandable as they are in very large part the ones who “wrote the rules.”

    One group that has so far managed to avoid scrutiny for their failure are the Boards of those corporations who were obviously so mis-managed. Where were those individuals during this process?

    While ‘running an organization’ is the function of a CEO and other senior executives, the responsibility of insuring that they are doing their job properly is that of the Board of Directors. If the CEO and other senior executives failed, then they also failed, and they should be held fully accountable by the stockholders.

    That was recently brought home to me when listening to an interview on “Peter Rose”. A board member (Fieldman) of one biggest failures, AIG, when asked a question about the failure of AIG, this individual, a Harvard economist himself, said that he could not speak about it because of the on-going litigation and furor surrounding that failure.

    While that may have been the case, I would seriously question the individual’s qualifications to teach economics, at Harvard or any other college. If he did not understand, or unwilling to accept, what was happening at AIG, what was he doing as a member of the governing body of that organization?

    What was he doing, spouting some ‘academic theory’ at board meetings? If, with his, I am sure, much vaunted Phd, he could not “see” or understand what was happening before his very eyes, what chance does the average person have of doing so? Therein lies the problem. The individual was stuck in ‘theory’, and did not have his eyes on reality.

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