On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:08:18 -0500, Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:


No - it was not caused by Wall Street - it was caused by two outsized
factors - the first was the speculative oil bubble which placed an
absurd tax the average American who suddenly had limited funds due to
the increased costs of fuel and fuel oil. The second factor was the
refusal of the FED and Treasury Department to back up Bear Stearns -
which was a solvent company with plenty of assets that had run into
liquidity because of ourside pressure on it's stock.

Live by leverage, die by leverage. Bear Stearns was only solvent went
times were good. When you leverage yourself 35 to 1, you go bye, bye,
when things get tight.



GM had been in trouble for years prior to the collapse.

I'm not denying GM has been in trouble, I'm only arguing the present
financial meltdown brought it into crisis.



With respect to Obamessiah's New New Deal, the original New Deal was a
joke and strictly make work. This isn't going to work either because
it's a SOP to the construction unions to keep their members busy - screw
everybody else.

Tell me - what's an average factory worker make building solar panels.
Have any idea? How about a truck driver - non Union? How about a flag
waver for traffic control. The guy who runs the paver, the roller, the
bridge steel worker. Is Obama going to give all these people the same
rate of pay regardless of what they do? How is he giong to control the
cost? Is it going to be privately contracted or government contracted?
How about the engineers, the surveyors, the cost managers, accountants
and lawyers - they all going to be paid at the same rate as
professionals?

It's a joke - you know it, I know it.

That's the difference, I don't see this as a joke. We are in recession,
and it looks like a serious one to me. Let GM go down, and we are
talking depression. That's no joke. Many of us will survive
financially, but what about the social upheavals? The last depression
brought us facists, communists, unions, all warring for a piece of the
pie. Hell, we even had a Dupont planning a coup. No thanks.

Frankly, I don't give a damn about GM. During normal times, I'd say let
them go under, but in these times, I think the risk of letting them fail
is too big. The bridge *loan* they are talking about is 1/10 what we
have already spent on Wall Street, and only a couple of months of the
spending we've been doing in Iraq for years.