Is that a challenge?

No hard feelings sir Starkers. I just feel very strongly that this is the time for "The People" to scream loudly. We have let the governement rape and pillage our futures enough. I am worried about generations to come. My generation has had it too easy and perhaps it's time for a wake up call...which will happen sometime this week. Historic financial events are about to happen and it won't be the wealthy suffering.

Messiah, why bother?  People hear only what they want to hear. 

Certainly not!  I suppose there are some humorous war stories shared between old war buddies and handed down to families, but for the most part war is ugly, unnecessary and politicians should have no right whatsoever to send the young men/women to fight/sometimes their deaths.  Guess that's why I'm none too keen on McCain... old military men never seem to lose the war mentality.

Nope, no hard feelings, mate. I understand where you're coming from and agree with much of what you are saying... the government, both yours and ours here in Oz, have done everything to feather their own nests while doing very little or nothing for the common good. For the most part, they offer token gestures rather than real solutions/help, none are true to their word and none keep their promises.

Sadly, however, no mater how loud the hue and cry is from the people they're supposed to serve, they have feathered their own nests far too well and have entrenched themselves in an virtually impregnable system that intrinsically protects their futures and interests.  The only way to change that would be to have the constitution amended to change the fabric/make up of the Senate, Congress and the White House. However, those with vested interests would vehemently oppose it and I firmly believe blood would be spilled to enforce the status quo, so afraid they are of losing their grip on power.

Oh, and another thing!  Legislate that large oil, tobacco, hi-tech and drug companies can not make political donations... to any party or politician, period.  Take away the corporate donations... er, bribes and then see how many politicians are willing cowtow to corporate influences and lobbying.

And you're spot on about historic financial events... the US/World is teetering on the edge of probably the biggest financial collapse/disaster in history.  There are too many electronic and paper transactions without any real or actual productivity from domestic manufacturing... not to mention imports far outweighing exports, so yeah, the stock markets will crash big-time... and yes, this time many of the wealthy will also suffer.  It is inevitable because too many of them have little capital/hands-on cash through having invested heavily in stocks, bonds and commodity markets that will not survive the enormous decline.

And we WON'T call it a recession... it'll be much worse!

Amazed to see the foreigners weighing in on American politics.

no editing I guess...

Something to think about...

As the Bush Administration asks for close to a trillion dollars to prevent a worldwide financial cataclysm, here are some numbers you might find interesting -- courtesy of the ABC News Research Center and ABC News' Barbara Paulson.

In 2007, Wall Street's five biggest firms -- Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley -- paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves.

That's $10 billion more than the $29 billion loan taxpayers are making to J.P. Morgan to save Bear Stearns.

Those 2007 bonuses were paid, even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines -- their worst year since 2002.

If split equally among the approximately 186,000 workers at the former Big Five Houses, that bonus money means an average of $201,500 per person -- more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the U.S. last year.

NT: Too darned right! Those spoils (what's better than money? Other people's money!) say to me that the Gov't. should be going after them as well. The Dems want to do that but no! "The emergency is too urgent". Un-freakin'-believable! No sense of justice nor decency whatever! Why can't both be dealt with swiftly by Presidential Order?

LOL...forgot...cronies and all that! Presidential Orders were used only when Congress had to be circumvented.

HGE: I think both views have a good deal of legitimacy. "The straw that broke the Camel's back", don't you know. But you are correct as well: Bullies are at their base cowards...so your view is equally valid in my eyes.

As for Starkers? He's just pretending to be a foreigner. He's actually one of the most egalitarian WC-ers around! Oh yes, and Pirates have no nationality...

Sorry....no Edit button, yet.

I wanted to add one thing: A real caveat. Parts of this info came from The American Freedom Campaign.

If we have learned one thing over the past seven years, it is this:  Do not EVER trust the Bush administration when the question of executive power is at issue! The administration is always saying some kind of crisis necessitates urgent action, which inevitably leads to the administration being given -- and abusing -- unprecedented power. This is hardly a "new discovery". Naomi Klein has written about this (a good read), "The Shock Doctrine".

With the specter of a complete Wall Street collapse hanging over our heads (with multiple guilty parties...I am NOT assigning blame), Treasury Secretary Paulson is seeking 700 billion taxpayer dollars to bail out the financial industry.  While I can't take a position on the financial details contained in the administration legislative proposal (I really don't know enough yet), I am outraged by one specific section related to executive branch accountability. (as usual....the "plausible deniability" and "Get Out of Jail" Monopoly Card):

Section 8 of the legislation provides, "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." (I am deliberately not saying what I really wanna say!):

WHAT?!?!

Yup! The administration is asking Congress to give the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to spend $700 billion as he wishes, without any real oversight or accountability! 

With respect to Congress, the proposed legislation requires the Secretary to merely submit reports about his activities starting three months after the first purchase of mortgage-related assets and semi-annually thereafter. That's sort of like giving a gambling addict your life savings and asking him to send you a postcard from Las Vegas every once in a while!

Emergency action is required. I agree: But so is protection from abuse, protection of "the little guy" who may have been duped into the wrong type of mortgage or the guy who has been screwed due to race, etc. all his life and has nothing but was trying to get somewhere. Not the speculators!

I know this isn't what some others feel about this terrible situation and we all have the right to believe as we do, but please keep all remarks civil...as I try to do as well.

Dr.J.

Economist Dean Baker put these principles in print for the bailout, and I am quoting them:

"The Fed and Treasury are right to take steps to avert this disaster. While there is an urgency to put a bailout program in place, there are several important issues that Congress should address in the context of bailout. While there is not time to prepare all the details of the financial restructuring that will follow after the bailout, there can be an agreement on the outlines that this restructuring should take. This list of suggestions is presented in that context:

"Principles to Guide the Bailout

"1) Financial institutions should be forced to endure the bulk of the losses with taxpayer funds only used where absolutely necessary to sustain the orderly operation of the financial system.

"2) The bailout must be designed to minimize the opportunity for gaming.

"3) The bailout should be designed to minimize moral hazard.

"4) In the case of delinquent mortgages that come into the government's possession, there should be an effort to work out an arrangement that allows the homeowner to remain in her house as owner. If this proves impossible, then former homeowners should be allowed to remain in their homes as renters paying the market rent. This should be done even if it leads to losses to the government.

"5) There should be serious efforts to severely restrict executive compensation at any companies that directly benefit from the bailout."

And my thanks to those who do!

Dr.J.

YOu quote a story about old news, and blogs?  Get real!  It does prove one thing.  The opposition is the one that keeps bringing it up.  Seriously, get new material.  Your jokes are lame, and you sir are no Obama.

Yup, and there's a reason for that: much of what is happening there is happening here in Oz (other parts of the Word)... some of it a domino effect resulting from political/financial events in the US: some of it because our politicians haven't the balls to tell Bush 'NO': some of it because of global trade agreements/markets causing our domestic manufacturing going into decline, thus increasing imports, decreasing exports while reducing employent and the GDP.

I may not completely understand the intricate web woven into the fabric of the US Constitution and/or politics, but I sure as hell understand when it screws us at the same time it is screwing you over.

We have exactly the same situation here... not one of the upper echelon of the McQuarie Bank is less than a millionaire - most are multi-millionaires - and in its wisdom, the McQuarie Board has seen fit to award billions in bonuses in recent years to already obscenely rich board members/high level employees.  At retirement (including bonuses of 26 million), one such board member got a 37 million dollar handshake goodbye, thus propelling him into the top 100 richest in Australia with 170+ million. It's totally obscene when so many are strugging to put food on the table/gas in the tank... he's never ever going to be able to spend it in (what remains of) his lifetime... and (underworked overpaid) he certainly never earned it.. at least not honestly.  I mean, what makes his 40 hour week, *expertise* more valuable than *say* a life saving brain surgeon who puts in 50 hours for 100th of the pay.

Some will say it is the right of capitalists, but when corporate entities trample/stomp all over anything and everything in their paths to succeeed/dominate; lobby governments to legislate in their favour/turn a blind eye to that which is not in the common good; and richly reward themselves with fat *unearned* bonuses at the expense of everyone, particularly the 'have nots' - then capitalism is not a good economic model... and less so when corporations deny workers employment/the means to live by moving operations/manufacturing offshore to minimise costs by exploiting cheap (sometimes child) labour in Third World countries, thus eroding our standard of living by paying Third World workers a pittance, even by their own standards, for work we can do ourselves to support ourselves.

Neither your government or ours has done anything to stem the flow of jobs heading offshore/to help reconstruct a sustainable economy based on 'real' productivity rather than electronic money tied up in stocks and shares that fluctuate too far too frequently to provide economic stability... and that's why big business and government should never sleep in the same bed.  They're too busy scratching each others backs to notice/care that they are effing up millions of lives.

I believe the absence, in part, is the 'I gave at work' syndrome. As Government has 'taken' (taken, because it was never part of this country's founder's plan) on the role of giving welfare (also known as redistribution of wealth) to those it deemed 'needy', the common man's commitment to each other's welfare has fallen off.

Ironically, or perhaps understandably, those that promote the State welfare over personal giving tend to give less to their common man in the form of charities, etc. according to many reports I've seen. Joe Biden comes to mind.

After all, they gave at work.