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Are people on Wall Street Stupid?

Don't forget to vote Republican so we can make the situation you describe above (and all of the other wonderful consequences of cutting taxes while raising spending) permanent.  I'd start a "write in Warpy for President" campaign, but there's stuff in my past that's better off staying there, so I hereby endorse Billy R Stern for prez.

Are people on Wall Street Stupid?

I would buy one of those scooters that gets 70+ mpg if it weren't for the fact that people don't know how to drive nowadays, and I have something against being a speedbump. Riding a bike wouldn't work either, to get to where I work, I go up and down a bunch of very steep hills. I would be too exhausted to actually work.I feel ya on this one.  I have an Explorer and it may as well be a damn tank.  I fill up at $70 +/- every 4 or 5 days.  Unfortunately I live in Montgomery County and have a job that moves around a lot (currently in NJ) so I can't ride a bike 30+ miles to work everyday, and I would get killed on the Blue Route on one of those scooters.  (Could you imagine that sight, hahahahaha)  I guess my only option is to get rid of my car that I use to haul around my dogs and other such things and buy an import that gets 40 MPG.  How does that help the economy?  It's a big mess right now and I don't think that ANY of the candidates on the ticket right now will be able to even make a dent in it.  McCain might even have the ability to make it worse.

Are people on Wall Street Stupid?

To me this isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, its a political issue.  I say this because both sides are getting the oil dollars for thier campaigns.  What we need is for congress to investigate as to why we are paying so much for a waste product. 

Until eveyone realizes that Gasoline is now a waste product of the oil industry we will still be held captive by their price gouging.  Why do I say and insist it is a waste product.  Well, here are my reasons.  Right now over 96 percent of all oil is used for plastics.  Don't believe me.  Here is a small insert as to what plastic are made from.

Are people on Wall Street Stupid?

Thanks for the excellent post. You can tell from my Av how i feel about politics so I'll try to set that aside as much as I'm able.

You sort of made the connection between the housing crisis and the oil crisis in your blog. They're both driven primarily by investors. Banks and oil companies are just responding to the market or their own investors. It's easy to point the finger at them because of all the profits they make. One of my big issues is the too-comfortable relationship large corporations have with our government. Wall Street is just doing it's job and that's to make money. The biggest oil investors are the wealthy and they aren't affected by our economy to the extent you and I are. Generally, people don't like government regulations, but I think that's what it's going to take to limit the impact on our economy of these huge impacts from investors. Regulations are why we haven't had another depression since the 1930's. This comes back to the relationship between large corporations and our government.

Are people on Wall Street Stupid?

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that the US is dependent upon any other country for anything.  Including oil.  There are some pretty huge untapped oil fields in the US, which should have been tapped years ago. 

The number one priority of any president should be to decrease US reliance on foreign countries.  Companies should be penalized, not rewarded, for outsourcing jobs.  The US is currently shipping raw materials--for example, lumber--overseas and then importing finished products made of that lumber.  Ridiculous.  The manufacturing should be done in the US. 

And you think $4 per gallon gas is scary?  If Clinton or Obama is elected, both have promised to repeal tax cuts.  For a single person like myself, my taxes will increase by something like 80%. (There is a whole chart listing the info, but I don't have it handy as I'm typing this. It's a big number.)  Add to that increasing food prices, and increasing costs for government services (eg. my professional license).  To top it off, the cost of socialized medicine is mind-blowing.  Right now, we're paying for Medicare and Medicaide programs--which are supposed to help the elderly and those in need, but are continually ripped off.  Not to mention we're paying 100% of the cost of medical care for illegals in this country (you wouldn't even believe the size of hospital bills run up by illegals--who don't pay a dime of those bills.)  Oh, yeah, and we're paying for public education of the kids of illegals, too, but that's a whole other issue.   It's particularly frightening that every candidate wants to give away Social Security to illegals too.  (I propose that the entire congress lose its fat pensions and have to rely on Social Security when they retire; believe me, they'd fix the system and not be so hasty to give it away to people who haven't contributed to it.)  I can't afford for Clinton to win.  Or Obama.  To think of either of them as "Commander in Chief" of the US military is severly disconcerting.    That leaves McCain; I definitely have more in common idealogically with him than with the others, but if someone else was still in the running, I'd probably be voting for the other guy.  There are plenty of reasons that I'm not crazy about McCain-- but the thought of either Clinton or Obama as president truly scares the heck out of me.

Are people on Wall Street Stupid?

Regulations are why we haven't had another depression since the 1930's.

I know this is an old and inactive thread but I really enjoyed reading what people had to say.  I will not hazard a guess as why we have not had another depression.  It may or may not be because of regulations imposed by the government.  I will say though that the reason the Great Depression lasted as long as it did was because of government regulation and interference.  The depression of the late 20s and early 30s was world-wide.  Those countries whose government took a hands-off approach to dealing with the crisis recovered much, much faster (Brazil, for example) than those governments that had a hands-on approach (the U.S.).   Many of FDR's plans to get us out of the depression are still active and still causing headaches after all of these decades.

Concerning bail outs, I am completely against that.  The airlines should have been under decades ago, as should have half of the American auto industry.  That the taxpayers are forced to support such large and inefficient industries is terrible.  These industries should be allowed to collapse under the weight of their own incompetence.  In their absence a new, more efficient model will arise- provided there is money to be made.