Replies to post #172929 on Simply Politics & News (GOV)

[Iggy_Bot]

post of the month

[extelecom]

Excellent....
I commented several times what a coincidence it was that all these things managed to go wrong right before the election of course none of the Dems. were interested. Obama is nothing but a meat puppet.

[Gulfbreeze]

Great Post Thanks...

[fuagf]

omegahpla, at the risk of being seen as pretentious, by you and those who loved your post so much .. sheezzzz, you guys are amazing .. lol .. seriously, please .. do you have a link, from a respectable source, which states the case, as i read your first paragraph to put .. for the rise in fuel prices, directly causing a credit crises, which then caused the mortgage collapse.

Just on your first paragraph .. or did i interpret it incorrectly?

Friend, if you blame Bush for the economic disaster, then you hardly have the right to be so pretentious. I'd love a detailed account of what exactly Bush put into place that lead to the fuel prices sky rocketing. To the credit crisis
caused by the fuel prices which pushed the economy to the point the bad mortgage backed securities went down.

This is only a query on your first paragraph. Did i interpret it correctly? Haven't read any further .. yet ..

Please consider ..

The subprime mortgage crisis is an ongoing real estate and financial crisis triggered by a dramatic rise in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures in the United States, with major adverse consequences for banks and financial markets around the globe. The crisis, which has its roots in the closing years of the 20th century, became apparent in 2007 and has exposed pervasive weaknesses in financial industry regulation and the global financial system.

Approximately 80% of U.S. mortgages issued in recent years to subprime borrowers were adjustable-rate mortgages. When U.S. house prices began to decline in 2006-07, refinancing became more difficult and as adjustable-rate mortgages began to reset at higher rates, mortgage delinquencies soared. Securities backed with subprime mortgages, widely held by financial firms, lost most of their value. The result has been a large decline in the capital of many banks and U.S. government sponsored enterprises, tightening credit around the world.

The immediate cause or trigger of the crisis was the bursting of the United States housing bubble which peaked in approximately 2005–2006. High default rates on "subprime" and adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), began to increase quickly thereafter. An increase in loan incentives such as easy initial terms and a long-term trend of rising housing prices had encouraged borrowers to assume difficult mortgages in the belief they would be able to quickly refinance at more favorable terms. However, once interest rates began to rise and housing prices started to drop moderately in 2006–2007 in many parts of the U.S., refinancing became more difficult. Defaults and foreclosure activity increased dramatically as easy initial terms expired, home prices failed to go up as anticipated, and ARM interest rates reset higher. Falling prices also resulted in homes worth less than the mortgage loan, providing a financial incentive to enter foreclosure. The ongoing foreclosure epidemic that began in late 2006 in the U.S. continues to be a key factor in the global economic crisis, because it drains wealth from consumers and erodes the financial strength of banking institutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

On a skim of the rest i don't think fuel prices are mentioned?

I'd love it ..... if you could give me a link which supports your first paragraph.

[makesumgravy]

Its obvious your a Bush fan, and you do make some valid points, but none in reference to Bush. He did come before the American people with a face almost tearful, but spoke boldly about the need for the taxpayer to bail out the corruption of Wall Street, according to his Treasury Sec, the new Fed Chair, and Ron Cox former SEC Chair his old man nominated for that position. Not in those terms, he openly admitted he knew little about what was going on in the economy. "The economy!", the economy thats been sold to foreign countries thru concessions.

I agree that rising oil prices do have a negative impact on all of us, unless your one of mega rich, and drive a Bentley, or a Ferrari, or you can own a Yacht the size of Cruise ship, or a Jet, the cost may get into the millions of more dollars, they'll just up their comp packages, and sell a few more stocks, or their hedge fund mgr can short enough in a day to take care of the additional cost, but for most working Americans it shows up on the credit cards. Today when every other vehicle is a Pick-up or SUV some the size of a house people don't need but want to drive to and from work for show or bully with because they have one even bigger draws little sympathy. The impression the people give is that they can afford them, and the gas, in spite of rising oil prices. $35K-$60k+ and a vehicle that can be traded in every 2 years. There's a common sense way to combat rising fuel prices at the pump, but just what will happen to higher energy prices for our homes that are tied to the Cap an Trade is an area I haven't researched?, but from what I gather it will compound.

It didn't start nor finish with out of control fuel cost, but with all thats going on in the world and "our" govt having done little since the oil embargo in the 70's knew it was just a matter of time before our sacks would be in the ringer, a commodity that can be used for black mail should have been enough for steady changes, research, and technology, and our modes of transportation if they would have been working with our car manufacturers. Instead we wind up with $4+ at the pump and the Hummer. The real reasons we went into Iraq, and the real reasons why we don't go after Iran, nor will they, and the reasons for their fear of what Israel may decide to do, and the primary reason why Afghanistan has been left in state of stalemate is due to them not having any resources, other than they supply 90% of the heroin throughout the world. There's not alot to gain from them is there?, except the reason we were supposedly there in the first place, to end al qaeda in that region and Bin Laden. But 8 years of diversion, and the American people are fed up with all of it, they don't want to rebuild Afghanistan with trillions of their tax dollars, when our own shores are sick.

But with the States adopting new marijuana laws, who knows?, maybe they can find a legal market for it.

Our govt has been completely out of control since the end of Eisenhower, and we can contribute half this time to the Republicans, and the other half to the Democrats, and they fight continually with one another. The Republicans want to give little to the American people, but have bent over with their pants down for the rich. The Democrats have proven to be not a whole lot better whose primary political agenda is to support special interest groups who are constantly crying for more at the expense of the rest of the country, and both are responsible for getting us into unjustified wars, and getting this country into things that we're not only dirty on the surface but the undersides to. Just think of where our country would be today if we had a righteous govt with righteous leaders who would have not sold their offices out, and would have worked together to strengthen us, kinda like all for one, and one for all, perhaps today we wouldn't be crumbling like our infrastructure is.

Wall Street owns Washington.

[fuagf]

omegahpla, suggest you check the UN Security Council members.

Sure, some countries strongly objected to the invasion. France,
Russia, Germany, others who were not in the Security council like China

You have told me that i can ask you any question and you will have a good
answer to it .. well there is one question in my first reply, which you did not answer.

Question 1 .. Did i interpret your first paragraph correctly? Yes or No please .. your reply did not answer the question.

Question 2 .. .. How could you make such a basic mistake re the members of the UN Security Council?

Gotta say i understand now why some thought your post a good one, while others got a chuckle from it.

Question 3. Do you enjoy Swiss cheese? Your post is very holey.

Seriously .. lolol

[fuagf]

omegahpla .. couple of links for you re your ..

I'd love a detailed account of what exactly Bush put into place that lead to the fuel prices sky rocketing.

Airline industry blames Bush for skyrocketing fuel prices
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=20040109&id=DpwMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4GEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2930,2102147

16 Republican senators agreed that Bush policies did have an affect on oil prices ...

Senate Democrats are pursuing legislation that would bar the federal government from socking away oil until prices fall, and 16 Republican senators on Tuesday said oil shipments should stop. All three presidential hopefuls support such a move.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/bush-says-no-magic-wand-to-lower-fuel-prices

How Bush Pushed Gasoline Prices Sky High
By Katherine Yurica

On March 5, 2003, Senator Carl Levin, the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released a report prepared by the minority staff that reveals why gasoline prices soared under the Bush administration. It has to do with the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) and some odd decisions by the Department of Energy (DOE) after consulting with White House officials.

According to the Senate Report, the Bush administration added forty million barrels of oil to the nation’s reserves in 2002. That wouldn’t be a problem in and of it self. But the purchases represented an extreme change in energy policy; they were made in a strong market, with a tight supply of oil, which increased demand, which in turn pushed up the gasoline prices to their highest levels in twelve years.

The Senate report said in a one-month period in mid 2002 the Bush administration purchases caused crude oil prices to soar, raising the cost of heating oil by 13%, jet fuel by 10% and diesel fuel by 8%. The bottom line was the Bush policy change cost citizens between $500 million and $1 billion.

When crude oil jumps from $20 a barrel to $30, the Senate report says, the costs to U.S. taxpayers are an additional $1 million per day. “Over three months, the additional cost of filling the SPR approached $100 million,” which will ultimately be borne by U.S. taxpayers.

Why did Bush do it? For one thing, he was advised to do it. It has to do with the secret National Energy Policy advisory group headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney has steadfastly refused to release the names of those who advised the administration on energy matters. However, according to an article published in the Sunday Herald in Scotland (October 6, 2002), by Neil Mackay, it was former Secretary of State, James Baker who personally carried an advisory report to Cheney in April of 2001. Assembled at the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, the task force consisted of oil and energy executives. The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century is referred to simply as the “Baker Report” or “report” below. [...]

The Baker report was not irresponsible, it also warned the president, “One problem with trying to refill the reserve at this time when markets are strong is that any purchases made by the U.S. government would add to the current tight supply.” In other words, prices would go up!

At one point, the Baker report recommended that purchases of reserve additions be accomplished through direct “budgetary allocations.”

Trying to teach a new president the facts on SPR oil rights and wrongs must have been a heady proposition. There were many object lessons in which to point. The Baker report singled President Bill Clinton’s use of his “discretionary authority to lease oil to the market on a time-swap or exchange basis” as an example of a no-no. First, according to the Baker experts, Clinton’s exchanges reduced the size of the SPR at a time when more oil might have been needed. Next, the report chided, a president must not earn “far less in interest” than he could have, by using better methods. Perhaps Clinton’s biggest faux pas according to the Baker experts is that he used the drain-down of the reserves “to address winter heating-oil inventory concerns,” which indeed reduced heating oil from $37 to $31 per barrel. That was a big no-no. The Baker report advises a president must not use the SPR as “a market buffer stock to damp prices and price volatility.” (Translation: A president must not help the poor to heat their homes at a reasonable price at the expense of oil company profit taking.)

Hence in the National Energy Policy report, the NEPD Group “recommends that the President reaffirm that the SPR is designed for addressing an imminent or actual disruption in oil supplies, and not for managing prices.” (At page 8-17.)

That recommendation signaled a significant policy change: it denied the president the
right to withdraw oil at times when prices are unusually high due to manipulation of the market.

What were the superior choices left for the President? The report advises taking advantage of “the market’s forward price structure…if the market structure were backwardated, with future prices lower than current prices, the government would be able to replenish the reserve with more oil than it had leased on an auction basis. If the market structure were in contango, with future prices higher than prompt prices, the government could lease its cheaper spare storage capacity to industry, thereby also providing revenue to build government-owned reserves at a later time.”

But the method the Bush administration chose was to fill the SPR without regard to crude oil prices at all but simply at a constant rate of speed
http://www.yuricareport.com/Energy/How%20Did%20Oil%20Prices%20Get%20so%20High.htm

The Price of Oil and the Bush Dollar .. Don't Blame the Oil Sheikh's
By DAVE LINDORFF .. Philadelphia, PA

In fact the real culprit behind these higher oil prices is the Bush Administration, which, thanks to its massive deficits and tax give-aways to the rich and corporations, to its war spending, and to its failure to combat unprecedented and ever-larger trade deficits, has been causing the dollar to plunge in value.

Oil is a commodity and it is priced in dollars. If dollars decline in value, then the price of oil will rise in inverse proportion.

One need only look at Europe to see what this means.

Over the period from February 1, 2003, just before the start of the Iraq War, when oil prices began to rise in earnest, to Feb. 1, 2005, the price of a barrel of oil in dollars rose about 30 percent, from $30.13 a barrel to $42.91 a barrel. But over that same period of time, the Euro, Europe's new combined currency, rose 21 percent against the U.S. dollar, from .93 Euros to the dollar in February, 2003 to just .77 to the U.S. dollar in February, 2005.

For Europeans, then, the net rise in oil prices over the two years of the Iraq War has been just 9 percent,
or less than 5 percent per year-hardly the kind of energy inflation that would cause economic problems.
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04092005.html

A UK bite ..

He said: “Avoiding unnecessary car use, using buses and trains and choosing more fuel-efficient cars will save money and cut transport’s contribution to climate change. The Government must help motorists by investing extra oil tax revenues in public transport and cycling facilities, encouraging greener motoring and pushing for tough EU laws on the fuel-efficiency of all new cars.”

* The Daily Express is crusading to cut fuel duty and readers can show their support by signing the petition at www.express.co.uk/fueltax
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/49237/Cars-vanish-from-the-roads-as-high-price-of-fuel-bites/

How was Bush's record on the issues mentioned in that one?

The purpose of the post is simply to offer you evidence that many thought Bush policies
did in fact contribute to your petrol price burden. And, to help you fulfill a love desire.

I'd love a detailed account of what exactly Bush put into place that lead to the fuel prices sky rocketing.

[ONEBGG]

Another great post. Bush pissed me off big time too, but what he did right he deserves credit for. I'm big believer in the old adage credit due where credit is due, no matter who that may be.