Stock Market Meltdown!

[Patrycja]

No it's not the correct analogy at all. When someone is mugged or killed, someone willingly trampled on someone's rights and the other person suffered the consequences. When prices go up on an item (oil included) the consumer does not have to buy that product. They can simply buy that item from a cheaper source or not even get the product at all. There is choice. If Wal-Mart jacked its prices up 3x the daily average, consumers can go to K-Mart or something. Physical violence is involuntary for the victim. Consumers can voluntary make choices.

Oil companies are simply good businessman. Tough luck. Take public transportation, carpool, buy hybrids. You have options. Oil is not 100% the only way to go.

As far as that video, I can't watch it right now or probably even tomorrow. Really really busy, maybe Monday

LOL But it IS a direct analogy, we're just not understanding one another about what the actual analogy is. OK, I'm not referring to companies jacking prices. People have a choice and can shop somewhere else or not buy a product. And I'm not exclusively talking about oil companies, but irresponsible corporations in general.

The mugging/killing analogy I'm referring to has to do with how some corporations take advantage of cheap labour, how they pollute environments, how they contribute to finances of corrupt governments that their own countries are fighting against, how in some places where water was privatized a corporation charged citizens for RAIN WATER that they collected. The extent of the damage is well represented in that doc. These corporations knowingly engaged in these practices, but said they did not. And profited directly from and/or at the expense of direct and gross human atrocities.

I guess you're a student? Although I'm now done, I know what a grind it is. Good luck with that, and I look forward to getting your impressions of the doc whenever you can watch it.

[I have got a horsey]

No it's not the correct analogy at all. When someone is mugged or killed, someone willingly trampled on someone's rights and the other person suffered the consequences. When prices go up on an item (oil included) the consumer does not have to buy that product. They can simply buy that item from a cheaper source or not even get the product at all. There is choice. If Wal-Mart jacked its prices up 3x the daily average, consumers can go to K-Mart or something. Physical violence is involuntary for the victim. Consumers can voluntary make choices.

Wannabe, my dear dear boy, do you live in the real world?

It's not as easy as that...

the inter-connectivity of our economy means that oil affects the price of everying.

Maybe if you lived in New York or London public transport is the way to go, but it's not in LA...Most cities that have car-dominated transportation have a public transportation system that could not cope with a sudden increase in public patronage... If there is an increase, then more drivers and staff have to be hired to meet the demand, more mechanics get put on, their wages will go up due to the laws of supply and demand in the labour maketplace...more trains and buses would have to be put on, costs more money, higher fuel consumption, costs more money, this means ticket prices would have to go up, the cost of it all is passed on to the consumer unless you want the Government to keep the cost of it down by subsidizing it with tax dollars...

If Walmart prices rise by three times, people will go to K-Mart, and the rush to K-Mart will force them to raise their prices to be able to cope with the supply and demand. K-Mart's prices are at the level they are to attract buyers, if the demand for products suddenly increases, K-Mart is not going sustain their prices. K-Mart will be asking suppliers for more stock, the manufacturers of stock will have to produce more requiring extra staff costs and material costs etc, these costs will be passed on to K-Mart who'll pass them on to the consumer...

Remember Wannabe, our economies are based on the principle of supply and demand...higher demand, higher prices, need staff, higher wages...

[GoneFishing]

I got the Eisenhauer Blues sums up my thoughts Eisenhauer Blues ~ J.B. Lenoir

kinda wrong era but good song

[wanna be drummer]

LOL But it IS a direct analogy, we're just not understanding one another about what the actual analogy is. OK, I'm not referring to companies jacking prices. People have a choice and can shop somewhere else or not buy a product. And I'm not exclusively talking about oil companies, but irresponsible corporations in general.

Ok, then define "irresponsible"

The mugging/killing analogy I'm referring to has to do with how some corporations take advantage of cheap labour, how they pollute environments, how they contribute to finances of corrupt governments that their own countries are fighting against, how in some places where water was privatized a corporation charged citizens for RAIN WATER that they collected. The extent of the damage is well represented in that doc. These corporations knowingly engaged in these practices, but said they did not. And profited directly from and/or at the expense of direct and gross human atrocities.

Cheap labour? Really? Care to show me where Americans are working below minimum wage?

Water is not given out by the government. I don't know if you noticed, but everybody pays for it.

And as far as "contributing to finances of corrupt governments" I agree that needs to end. But simply putting the entire coporation into the government's hands is not a solution at all.

I guess you're a student? Although I'm now done, I know what a grind it is. Good luck with that, and I look forward to getting your impressions of the doc whenever you can watch it.

I'll let you know when i watch it. Been doing homework all day unfortunately. I'm just droppin by so nobody feels like I abandoned the conversation

Wannabe, my dear dear boy, do you live in the real world?

It's not as easy as that...

Nope

the inter-connectivity of our economy means that oil affects the price of everying.

You think oil is the only thing that affects everything? What if the cost of plastic skyrocketed? What if water did? What if the cost of natural gas or rubber or wood or electricity or peanut oil or bread or corn or hell even clothes just one day, skyrocketed 3x the normal. You don't think that would affect entire countries? Should we just let the government control all major businesses?

Remember Wannabe, our economies are based on the principle of supply and demand...higher demand, higher prices, need staff, higher wages...

This is true

[The Rover]

The Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Investment Banks, the last two standing.... have had their requests to change to bank holding companies approved by the Federal Regulators Sunday.

I think this is a big ploy.....to stall for time.... for the world to forget about Investment Banks...for a while....

Here's how I see it..... Congress was going to write some stiff regualtions for investment banks after all this mess. But now, that the last two investment banks are changed to bank holding companies.... they will be under regualr bank regualtions already in place. So this, may divert Congress from really writing as stiff enough oversight regs for Investment banks as these would right now in this climate.

So, the banks wait for a period of time.... and then when they get around to wating to be and have investment banks again..... regualtion will be written, but many will have forgotten the urgency of the moment, and they will get by with less oversight.

And the Banking Lobbying will continue for sure.

Whever there's a hole in the regulatory system.... Wall Street will bend over backwards to fill it.

IT'S WHAT THEY DO.

[The Rover]

They aren’t even hiding it anymore. I’m speaking of course about our government’s propensity to cover up the darkness and paint everything as if the light was coming from the sun itself rather than a horrid blinky fluorescent tube. The latest bailout proposes to allow the federal government to spend up to $700 billion for purchasing bad debt from “mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.”

They have already modified the “having its headquarters in the United States” rule, saying that foreign companies with a presence in the United States are eligible for the bailouts as well. Well that should make those of us worried about U.S. sovereignty a bit uneasy. Of course that is now the least of our worries.

Also, the wording of the bailout proposal should make anyone concerned about federal government overreach quake in their boots. This bailout has been described as the Patriot Act for the financial sector. How can such a claim have merit? Well, let’s look at the proposal in more detail.

First the wording of the proposed limit of $700 billion shows that it is not a limit at all. The text reads the bailout “shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time.” This means that the bailout is truly unlimited. As Chris Martenson describes in his great article regarding the proposal:

Whoa! Stop! What is this “at any one time” language?? This means that $700 billion is NOT the cost of this dangerous legislation, it is only the amount that can be outstanding at any one time. After, say, $100 billion of bad mortgages are disposed of, another $100 billion can be bought. In short, these four little words assure that there is NO LIMIT to the potential size of this bailout. This means that $700 billion is a rolling amount, not a ceiling.

So what happens when you have vague language and an unlimited budget? Fraud and self-dealing. Mark my words, this is the largest looting operation ever in the history of the US, and it’s all spelled out right in this delightfully brief document that is about to be rammed through a scared Congress and made into law.

The proposal gets worse. Here is where it starts sounding like the Patriot Act:

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.

How is that for some power? Hopefully this provision will not be in the final bill. This is proof they aren’t even hiding their thirst for power anymore. If this makes you squirm you aren’t the only one.

As if that wasn’t enough, we have to have some fascism mixed in with our socialism right? Try this part of the proposal on for size:

Necessary Actions.–The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:…

designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;

Well I suppose if the government is bailing them out the government should be able to use them as “financial agents of the Government”.

Is this as hard for you to swallow as it is for me? The sad truth is that the final bill will likely get worse after it spins through Congress attracting more special interest provisions from both sides in the name of compromise. I’m willing to bet right now that the final bill will up the $700 billion rolling limit to a higher number. If not, I will be pleasantly surprised.

I keep reading about how the alternative to the bailout would be much worse. I keep hearing this “we are helping main street” narrative from the supporters of the bailout. To me this is hogwash. Ron Paul said it best yesterday on CNN when he said that without the bailout we’d “have a bad year” but with the bailouts it “will be a bad decade”.

[eternal light]

As long as they resell those assets at a profit to benefit the American public it should be alright. A bailout measured in billions makes sense when it is to adjust the balance in a market that measures in trillions.

[ally]

As long as they resell those assets at a profit to benefit the American public it should be alright. A bailout measured in billions makes sense when it is to adjust the balance in a market that measures in trillions.

Your right EL. I wouldn't normally agree with a bail out but the real consiquences of not doing so would be horrible.

[Patrycja]

Ok, then define "irresponsible"

Cheap labour? Really? Care to show me where Americans are working below minimum wage?

Water is not given out by the government. I don't know if you noticed, but everybody pays for it.

And as far as "contributing to finances of corrupt governments" I agree that needs to end. But simply putting the entire coporation into the government's hands is not a solution at all.

I'll let you know when i watch it. Been doing homework all day unfortunately. I'm just droppin by so nobody feels like I abandoned the conversation

wannabe, in the immortal words of Colonel Frank Slade, "I don't know whether to shoot ya, or adopt ya!"

Ok, so by now I'm thinking you're just taking the piss out of me, but ok, I'll play along.

a - I largely defined irresponsible corporations as those which abuse human rights, environment, fund corrupt governments, etc.

b - sigh, wannabe, I'm obviously not talking about America with respect to cheap labour. But Corporations make most of their profits in third world and emerging countries. People in those places do not have the protection U.S. citizens enjoy. So yes, cheap labour is highly exploited. But minimum wage is hardly the be all shield of protection. By the way, there have been enough law suits in your own country against corporations which have displayed their blatant disregard for the laws the rest of the people are expected to uphold. There are many ways to coerce people into silence.

c - water is not given out by the government. But not everything that is under the government's jurisdiction is free. Clean water is a basic human right. In most places water is not privatized. In places where it is, it is withheld regardless of human rights. A corporation was charging citizens for RAIN WATER they collected. Say you're at the library and want to take a sip from the fountain to wet your whistle. Free. Say you're in a lake or river and want to collect some to boil and drink (not recommended, by they way, without those pink anti-bug pills LOL). Free. Say you're camping and you tie a spread a sheet between two trees, put a rock in the middle and a pot underneath to collect water. Free. Or simply if you wait for it to rain and set out a pot. Free. In a privatized water world = NOT FREE. In a privatized water world, you are brought to your knees and have to comply to just about any demand or die.

d - I never said to put the entire corporation into the government's hands. I said for more stringent measures to be in place so that a corporation feels the consequences of its illegal actions (where applicable, I know not all their actions are illegal)

Perhaps I'm being too general? But just try to make connections of bad corporations (again, I know they're not all the same, k?) to wider global impacts. This is long enough already, who wants to read an essay, so yeah, that doc and site give far more specifics than I'm offering. I'm tempted to ship a copy off to you

[I have got a horsey]

You think oil is the only thing that affects everything? What if the cost of plastic skyrocketed? What if water did? What if the cost of natural gas or rubber or wood or electricity or peanut oil or bread or corn or hell even clothes just one day, skyrocketed 3x the normal. You don't think that would affect entire countries? Should we just let the government control all major businesses?

Did I say that oil is the only thing that affects everything...?

[Bong-Man]

If a financial company is "too big to fail", isn't that an indicator that said company should be broken up into little pieces ? Isn't that what our anti-monopoly laws are for ? Why isn't that a condition of this loan ?

GWB seems scared out of his wits. He looked like a deer in headlights after that Fed meeting. Not good ! I've got a really bad gut feeling about this whole episode. My 80 year old parents scared the hell out of me too last night...."We were born during a depression, and now we're going to die during a depression".

[eternal light]

He may be a lame duck president at this stage of the game. They were trying to restore confidence in the financial markets by their actions, and the market did rally on the news.

[wanna be drummer]

wannabe, in the immortal words of Colonel Frank Slade, "I don't know whether to shoot ya, or adopt ya!"

Ok, so by now I'm thinking you're just taking the piss out of me, but ok, I'll play along.

I like arguing, it's fun. What can I say?

a - I largely defined irresponsible corporations as those which abuse human rights, environment, fund corrupt governments, etc.

I would agree. I would argue that punishing companies for doing so giving millions to Iran, or paying Nike workers below a living wage, or dumping radioactive materials into a river are all encroaching on human rights so they should be punished by governments and be forced to stop their atrocities. That being said, increasing oil prices is not an abuse of any of those factors you listed

b - sigh, wannabe, I'm obviously not talking about America with respect to cheap labour. But Corporations make most of their profits in third world and emerging countries. People in those places do not have the protection U.S. citizens enjoy. So yes, cheap labour is highly exploited. But minimum wage is hardly the be all shield of protection. By the way, there have been enough law suits in your own country against corporations which have displayed their blatant disregard for the laws the rest of the people are expected to uphold. There are many ways to coerce people into silence.

I agree that some corporations are paying employees less then a living wage, but how does this correlate with big oil?

c - water is not given out by the government. But not everything that is under the government's jurisdiction is free. Clean water is a basic human right. In most places water is not privatized. In places where it is, it is withheld regardless of human rights. A corporation was charging citizens for RAIN WATER they collected. Say you're at the library and want to take a sip from the fountain to wet your whistle. Free. Say you're in a lake or river and want to collect some to boil and drink (not recommended, by they way, without those pink anti-bug pills LOL). Free. Say you're camping and you tie a spread a sheet between two trees, put a rock in the middle and a pot underneath to collect water. Free. Or simply if you wait for it to rain and set out a pot. Free. In a privatized water world = NOT FREE. In a privatized water world, you are brought to your knees and have to comply to just about any demand or die.

Water is a human right as you said and should not privatized as a whole, you are correct. Although if a company wants to sell bottled water or water by the jugs, I say go for it.

d - I never said to put the entire corporation into the government's hands. I said for more stringent measures to be in place so that a corporation feels the consequences of its illegal actions (where applicable, I know not all their actions are illegal)

Ok, but what are big oil companies doing that would require more "stringent measures" so they would take a bigger hit if they did something wrong?

Perhaps I'm being too general? But just try to make connections of bad corporations (again, I know they're not all the same, k?) to wider global impacts. This is long enough already, who wants to read an essay, so yeah, that doc and site give far more specifics than I'm offering. I'm tempted to ship a copy off to you

I'll be watching it in a couple of minutes don't worry

Did I say that oil is the only thing that affects everything...?

Then i don't see your point at all...nor do you have one I guess. You're arguing that oil affects EVERYTHING and thus it needs to be watched over more closely by the government yes? Well there are quite a few things that affect EVERYTHING so why don't we just don't dump all those responsibilities on the government, that'd solve some problems right?

PS If I'm wrong in what you are saying, then feel free to correct me, because as of right now, I don't think you actually knew what me and Patrycja were talking about...

[I have got a horsey]

Then i don't see your point at all...nor do you have one I guess. You're arguing that oil affects EVERYTHING and thus it needs to be watched over more closely by the government yes? Well there are quite a few things that affect EVERYTHING so why don't we just don't dump all those responsibilities on the government, that'd solve some problems right?

PS If I'm wrong in what you are saying, then feel free to correct me, because as of right now, I don't think you actually knew what me and Patrycja were talking about...

No I did have a point but it looks like it went right over your head

I suggest you re-read your post, and then read my post again to understand why I gave that reply

[euro]

Thank you George Bush for inflation!

What an ugly today in the financial markets

THe biggest one day increase in oil ever.

Gold up big time too

A massive sell-off in the US dollar and the stock markets gave almost gave up the gains on Friday

So much for the Republicans being great stewards of the economy;the borrow and spend Republicans have even outdone the Democrats.

It is time that are US friends send Congress and the Administration a message:STOP SPENDING MONEY!

[wanna be drummer]

Ok well the link you gave me wasn't that great. I don't care what a bunch of 8th graders think after they watched one single film on corporations...so I guess I'm sorry to disappoint you? Oh well

[wanna be drummer]

No I did have a point but it looks like it went right over your head

I suggest you re-read your post, and then read my post again to understand why I gave that reply

You're point was that oil affects the cost of everything, thus it needs to be more highly regulated yes?

[Patrycja]

Ok well the link you gave me wasn't that great. I don't care what a bunch of 8th graders think after they watched one single film on corporations...so I guess I'm sorry to disappoint you? Oh well

noooooo the link is just an extra thing, did you watch the actual doc? It has nothing to do with the 8th graders LOL Did you really think all there was was that? (she bangs her head on table)

You're KILLING ME ahahahahahahahaha!

(I need a drink)

let's try this again lol

[wanna be drummer]

Sigh, Maybe I'll watch it tomorrow. Look do you really think this stupid video is going to just change my mind on the subject?

[Patrycja]

Sigh, Maybe I'll watch it tomorrow. Look do you really think this stupid video is going to just change my mind on the subject?

Sigh, award winning documentary, love, award winning documentary.

I never want to change anyone's mind about anything. That doesn't work. But it will give you more thought provoking info. What you choose to do with it is up to you. But I am curious what your impressions will be, wbd...

[wanna be drummer]

Award winning documentary? You think that matters?

Gore and Moore have won awards and their movies were pure shit

[Patrycja]

Award winning documentary? You think that matters?

Gore and Moore have won awards and their movies were pure shit

ok so now you're sounding pissy. Watch it and get informed or don't watch it and argue with what you know.

You may not have liked their docs, but to say pure shit is reductive. Again you choose what you get out of something

[wanna be drummer]

Are you saying you don't believe Global Warming/Climate Crisis is real??

Are you saying you don't believe Bush-Cheney lied us into war in Iraq??

Dude.

Your credibility is precariously teetering on the brink here, buddy.

I think Gore blows Global Warming far out of proportion.

As far as Sicko goes, that was a joke.

[wanna be drummer]

ok so now you're sounding pissy. Watch it and get informed or don't watch it and argue with what you know.

You may not have liked their docs, but to say pure shit is reductive. Again you choose what you get out of something

Pissy?

And by get informed you mean, "Watch this movie, it'll show you everything you need to know"except it's probably slanted to the left is it not? Then if I show a right-wing movie, the liberals will come in and put it down too. We've done that here enough.

I'll watch it tomorrow as I said.

[Patrycja]

Pissy?

And by get informed you mean, "Watch this movie, it'll show you everything you need to know"except it's probably slanted to the left is it not? Then if I show a right-wing movie, the liberals will come in and put it down too. We've done that here enough.

I'll watch it tomorrow as I said.

I'll gladly watch something you suggest, and I'll make up my own mind about it

everything's slanted