Obama Wins! - So What's Next?

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Hello? That is exactly the point that Splunge was trying to make. Did you just pick-up on that?

The first 25 billion they are receiving is to retool their plants so that they can build cars which are more "greener." Do you actually bother to read anything about these issues before you comment on them? The second bailout is because of the financial meltdown in the credit sector, which is making it hard for most companies to borrow money.

What are you talking about? What are these "many things?" Which problems were laid long before Bush I? Try actually proving your statements for a change. Btw, your narrow-mindedness is showing (once again) with your comments which gives GWB a pass, (stating that these are previous problems) while pouncing on Obama for exactly the same scenario.

Can you explain this more clearly? You claim that people are "buying too much." Do you have the data which shows exactly what they are "buying too much of" that caused a meltdown of the global economies?

So, you really believe that the world's economic crisis will get "worse before it gets better?" That would be a point upon which the rest of the planet agrees with you on....

 

Yes chandos, we know everything in the world is bush's fault according to you.
Just get the F over it already.

[Warning pending. -Tal]

 

Well, I haven't been to Canada in about 10 years, so I have no idea what the fuel prices are like there. However, I have lived all of the last 10 years in the US, so I can talk about fuel prices there. Going back to around 2000, and looking at the rise in fuel prices, I will agree that from around 2000 through 2007, fuel prices rose slowly. Back in 2000 gas prices were still only a little more than $1 per gallon. It took all the way until 2007 for gas prices to reach $2 per gallon (with the exception of Katrina when gas prices temporarily balloned to over $3 per gallon in several areas of the country). Then, in the course of a little over one year (from early 2007 until the summer of 2008) gas prices doubled again to over $4 per gallon.

When gas prices double in the course of 7 years, you can call that a gradual rise. When they double again in a little over 1 year, that is dramatic as Chandos says. So the writing really wasn't on the wall as you claim. Prices doubling in 7 years is in excess of the rate of inflation. (In fact, it is about double the rate of inflation that other sectors of the economy experienced in that time. If you look at inflation rates in the US, they averaged about 4% per year, whereas fuel prices increased by about 8% per year). Consumers, as evidenced by soaring SUV sales as recently as 2006, were still OK with gas prices at $2 per gallon. Your statement that "my comment still stands" seems to be deliberately misinterpreting Chandos statement, as it was clearly the sudden, recent rise in prices that caught everyone by surprise, and not the gradual rise in prices he was speaking of.

I, too, would like a bit more elaborate of an explanation here. Are you talking about the fact that the US has been importing oil from other countries for decades? That is certainly true, but it seems to overlook that the amount of oil we import (both in total volume and as a percent of our total fuel use) has increased dramatically in recent years.

Who would you blame? If you are simply making the point that the president gets too much blame when the economy is going poorly, and too much credit when the economy is running well, I will agree. However, when Republicans have controlled Congress for 12 of the last 14 years, and have controlled the White House for all of the last 8 years, it is hardly surprising that the Republicans are going to bear much of the blame for the current economic crisis. Bush, as the recognized leader of the Republican party is going to bear the brunt of the blame. I stand amazed if you honestly find this surprising.

 

Sounds to me like you should take your own advice, only instead, regarding President-Elect Obama. At least Bush was already president, and the one in charge, before I started trashing him, unlike some others, who won't even give the new guy a chance. The country has already seen GWB's incompetence and his limitations as president. Obama will be sorely tested and the results will speak for themselves. But they will be real results, not the unsupported and partisan trashing that I'm hearing from you and Gnarff.

Gnarff - And the biggest credit-wielding "consumer" in the US over the last 8 years has been, you guessed it, GWB. It's funny how I hear all this ranting against the average American (and some of it is grounded in just plain bigotry), while there is not a peep about the big spending, big borrowing, GWB. But that's right, he was spending everyone else's money.

 

Chandos, ok, so how many SUVs did Bush buy from the Big Three in the last 8 years? You're trying to blame him for the auto mess today, but it's there because the American people decided they like big, hulking cars. What did you expect Bush to do? Sign legislation demanding that they make little cars, too?

 

No aldeth what i find amazing is the fact that chandos blames EVERYTHING on bush.

I'm pretty sure he is talking about the inactivity since carter to do anything about increasing drilling in our own fields & getting more legitimate alternatives explored & advanced. Remember there were 3 terms of democratic presidents in there that did squat also, so please spread the blame around.

As for gnarff's concern about living beyond your means, bankrate.com states the following:
40% of american families spend more than they annually earn.
The average credit card debt among all american households is $8,400.
about 60% of active credit card accounts carry a balance every month.
The personal savings rate in the United States has dropped from 8 percent in the 1980s to just under 2 percent.

 

YES, that's exactly what should be done. Improve public transport, raise tax for gas guzzlers, and invest and subsidise the development of small cars. Heck, why doesn't the CIA be sent to commit industrial espionage in Japan and Europe; if it's for the good of the environment.
In time, legislation banning excessive waste and pollution can be passed, but I'm talking about the distant future. And I'm not just talking about cars.
But there's also a lot to be said for change in the high-pollution culture in the States. Drivers of SUVs in Holland get mixed responses; some think they're cool, others are repulsed. I get the impression from Hollywood that SUV drivers get consistent respect and high praise from peers, and this is where the real change must take place. Instead of thinking of hybrid drivers as smug, wussy and weak, SUV drivers should be seen as antisocial, weakminded and inconsiderate.

 

I think you are giving Gnarff more credit than he deserves. There are a lot of Americans who are not that familiar with America's energy policy over the last 3 decades, so I think it is expecting a lot to think that Gnarff, being a Canadian, knows about all of that.

That said, I agree with what you are saying. Americans have been a slave to mid-eastern oil for my entire lifetime, and frankly, I'd like to be done with that just so we don't have to remain beholden to mid-eastern nations that do not particularly like us (but really like our dollars).

 

Let's take your comments one-at-a-time:

And why do you think that is? Talk to someone in the oil industry and you will learn two things:

1. Oil is much more expensive to get out of the ground here. The oil we import is cheaper to produce, even though we haul it half-way across the world.

2. That would also mean that after our fields were depleted, who would have a large part of the oil? That would be the Mid-East. When theirs is gone, guess who will have all that untapped oil? That would be US.

You don't have to convince most of us on the left that alternatives are the future. We've been trying to make that point for years. I'm glad to hear that some people are listening to that idea now.

No, that's not correct, at least from a historical viewpoint:

This is 1973, and Nixon was prez, not Carter. As I commented in an earlier post, I'm sure the focus of this thread would shift yet again as the debate continues. Btw, this started with Gnarff's faulty comments about Obama's tax plan...

And if you buy a house or pay for an education you will exceed that, easily. How many people would buy your custom homes without credit?

And what percentage is that against the mortgage that people pay for your custom homes? Or a non-custom home? How about the price of a car? Or how much is it just to carpet a 2000 sqft house with a standard grade carpet? How about a set of kitchen cabinets? Would that approach the $8,000 dollar thershold, or exceed it? How about to furnish a new home? People can now put all kinds of items on credit cards, many of which would have been considered "installment debt" 10 or 15 years ago. That total amount might be misleading within the context in that consumers can now purchase even a new car on a credit card. It is still debt, just re-classified.

If you do not carry a balance than the credit card companies will either charge you an annual fee or close your account. They have a term for people who float for free on their cards. They really don't like it. But that's besides the point that many people are able to make their payments.

Consumer spending accounts for 2/3 of the economy. The time to worry is now, because when they stop spending, the economy stops. Business spending does not hold up the ecomony; the average consumer, that Gnarff complains and rants about, does.

What a joke that is. Is that how you invest your hard-earned money? When was the last time generally speaking, that personal savings accounts paid anything over 4 percent? That is the fault of the banks, not the consumers, for not providing the incentives for savings accounts. Oh yeah, I want to make "1.5 percent annually" on my retirement accounts - NOT!

 

wtf? I don't carry a balance on my credit cards, and I have not done so in many, many years. They do not charge me an annual fee, and they do not threaten to close my account. They certainly don't LIKE me, because not only do they not make any money from me, but they actually lose money on me. That's because I get 3% cash back on gas purchases and 1% back on all other purchases. I do have a high interest rate on the card of 19.99%, but if you never pay the interest, it doesn't matter.

 

Like Aldeth, I pay off my card every month too, and I neither pay an annual fee nor am I threatened with having my card taken away. But it's not accurate to say the credit card compnies don't make money on people like Aldeth or I because companies that accept credit cards as a means of payment are charged a transaction fee by the card companies. I think the rate varies from about 1% to 5%, depending on the credit card company and the volume of transactions a vendor does.

 

I've never experiened that either, but I only use one card and it has an annual fee anyway. But there was a story about it a while back on TV. I wish I could think of the term they used, that way I could Google it. But I didn't think much of the idea either.

 

I think it depends on the card.

When it comes to credit, I have to weigh in with my opinion. I believe that the overuse of credit by everyday people has become problematic. People use credit for things that are not necessities and then find themselves unable to pay off the card. Soon they become slaves to their creditors. I have no stats to back this up but IIRC personal bankruptcies have been rising over the past several years -- correct me if I'm wrong. Certainly my own experiences with bankruptcy lead me to the belief that the way we as a society view credit is not healthy and can lead to disaster.

Now does that let the big businesses off the hook? Of course not. Perhaps the statistics do not support the idea that individual consumers who get in over their heads are the ones responsible for the current financial crisis. But it IS a big problem and one that I firmly believe was a contributing factor in the meltdown. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of those sub-prime mortgages that are threatened with foreclosure are residential properties, not business properties, right?

But of course credit is necessary for some things. I have always been of the belief that credit should be used for only a few things:

1: A home.
2: A vehicle (in my neck of the woods, mass transit is often just not feasible.)
3: An education (if you play your cards right, it'll more than pay for itself.)
4: Emergencies (while it's nice to have emergency cash handy, having a card you can throw an airplane ticket on if Grandpa passes on is really good)

Anything else, you should budget more carefully and live within your means. otherwise you'll end up like LKD -- bankrupt and miserable and constantly PO's at the world.

 

Chandos please learn to count, carter & 2 clinton terms is 3 terms. 1+2=3
Also that $8400 is the average of everybody with a card, so for everyone that doesn't carry a balance there is another 8,400 to distribute among the rest.

The 40% figure stated that it excluded home & automobile debt.

A little math lesson, a $1,000 charge on a credit card payed off at the minimum 2% monthly payment will take almost 22 years to pay off & cost you about $2,300 in interest.

Unless you are just starting & trying to build your credit try to never carry a balance.

Now back to one of the other issues we were discussing, the auto industry.
Obama's biggest problem here is going to be the unions. He promised them a lot & he would have to go back on that.
Just look at GM, The UAW contract with them requires them to keep a "job bank" were workers who aren't working have to be paid their full salary & full benefits.
Gm currently has over 8,000 workers in the job bank & the average hourly wage at GM(for strictly hourly workers) is over $78/hr.
So the job bank is costing them over 1.25 Billion dollars a year, for workers who aren't working.
Thats just crazy.

 

Really? I'd like to see the link, since I know of people who have put cars, motorcycles and boats on their credit cards as well. Does your source know every item that everyone charged on their cards? Can you please provide a link?

I'll learn "how to count" when you learn how to read, since I never mentioned Clinton. Nor did I count anything except for your historical error regarding the first "oil crisis." Can you provide a link to this?

What did he promise them? Can you provide a source, which shows what are those promises Obama made that would make a bailout difficult?

 

Chandos i never mentioned any oil crisis, i simply stated the fact that there have been 3 dem terms in the midst of the rep terms & they deserve as much blame. YOU are the one that brought up the oil crisis of the early '70s.
All of the stats came from bankrate.com
considering that the UAW & AFL-CIO both endorsed him it is obvious he promised them something, probably support for the reintroduction of the misnamed "Employee free choice act".
You will be hard pressed to find a more divisive piece of trash in washington. It doesn't encourage free choice & one of the amendments(from a dem of course) would have actually restricted free choice by requiring everybody to belong to a union.

 

Perhaps you can qualify this statement then so that it makes more sense. Why are you starting with Carter, since the first concerns were raised in 1973 after the Arab oil embargo of 1973?

Can you provide a link for that. I'm not saying you are wrong, only that I would like to see two things: How this affects the auto bailout and the particulars of the problems this creates for Obama in the promises that he "may have made" to the UAW.

 

Specifically the "windfall profit tax" he imposed on domestic oil production. It was repealed in 1988 after congress determined that it had lead to an increased dependence on foriegn oil. This wasn't a tax on profits, it was an excise tax between a government determined "statutory" price & the actual market price.

Well, considering he co-sponsored the bill & it is even listed on his own website, he's pretty much got to support it now.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/ (look under the heading "labor")

It's funny, he keeps claiming he is the candidate of change yet everybody he has decided to appoint so far has been an old clinton friend or appointee. Just the same old political BS promise whatever & never carry through.

 

Ok, so let me follow the logic of this dialogue.

I commented that Bush "owned the economy," since he has been the current prez for the last 8 years. And Gnarff responds to my comment with this:

And I asked: What are the "problems" that were being laid long before Bush I was prez. He never responded so someone else did, which was you:

And now you say:

So let me see if I have this the way you intend it: Bush does not own the economy because of the windfall profits tax that was repealed 20 years ago. If that's what you intended, I don't agree. The current economic meltdown has more to do with the housing market. I thought you were stretching it a bit with the lack of success in cutting foreign oil imports since the first Arab oil embargo under Richard Nixon. But I wish you could explain how a law that was repealed 20 years ago caused the housing market to collapse in 2008.

 

Chandos, the housing market collapsed due to the policies of Alan Greenspan and the deregulation of the banking industry. These have been occuring over the past twenty or so years. While Greenspan slowed recession, the lowering of the interest rate allowed people to purchase houses at higher and higher values -- this inflated the market. At the same time, deregulation allowed for below prime loans (in particular ARM's) which really hurt the banking industry -- little to no profits. As soon as the banks realized they were losing money, the ARM's skyrocketed. Now people could no longer afford their over priced homes. Foreclosures, correction in the market, banks taking possession of unsellable homes ... well, it just hit a downward spiral.

Neither Bush nor Clinton did anything to stop the mess. But to be honest, many of the "experts" thought Greenspan was doing the right thing as well. Nobody wanted to notice the downward spiral until it was too late. Also, to be honest, the rising deficit does not instill confidence on Wall Street.