Outsourcing America 3021

Yeah, and I'm glad I'm not going to be one of them! I think it's going to be at least another 6 months before reality catches up with the sellers and we see some REAL reductions. Right now, most of the price "reductions" I see around here are from, like, 500K to 490K, when the property is probably only really worth 1-2 to 2-3 of that.

And THAT is precisely why the market is going to implode... wait'll all those spec buyers start to bail en mbutte!

This goes to what I wrote below. At some point, it's possible that the government may just decide how much is too much and may start seizing the "excess". Thing is, you don't have to have much to be considered "rich" in some circles. Now, I find this unlikely but possible. I think we'd really have to have some huge meltdown before that was considered.

However, they can seize houses,

Absolutely.

I think even a "win" in Iraq is going to leave us worse off. You give them an election, and they are going to elect someone worse than Saddam, which is ultimately going to make things worse for everybody. As bad as he was, Saddam was actually a stabilizing influence in the region: What we may wind up with is an Islamic hegemony spread across the entire middle east, possibly a superpower that would threaten Europe and Africa.

Even if we turn Iraq into a really great place it still wouldn't have been worth it. As an American, I have no interest in Iraq. It's not that I don't care, I just have no interest. If Iraq has a lousy dictator, that's a problem the Iraqi people need to solve, not the American people. It would only become our problem if Iraq launches an attack on the US. All of the financial, political and personal capital used up in the war would have been MUCH better spent, here: We could have invested it in fusion power or other domestic energy programs, a vibrant space industry, high-speed rail, etc... Or, what the hell, how about another TAX CUT?!? Instead, we got "democracy" in Iraq. Well, Ya f***ing Hoo!

Yeah, but there were, in history, worse liquidates in the past. I can cite.

Not to let Kenny Lay and the rest of them

No, I don't want that and I never said that I did. I agree that things like infrastructure and basic community services should stay public, or at least regulated but thats not relevant to what I said. My point is, it would be a really bad idea for government to decide how much is too much or who gets what. That kind of thing taken to any extreme inevitably results in widespread misery and rest. I mean, you really don't want to give someone else total control over what you get, do you?

When I lived in NJ, governor at the time raised state income taxes. A lot. He was going to stick it to the "rich". You know how much you had to make to be considered "rich"? $35,000-year. Yup, you make 35K and you're on the wrong side of the clbutt war. And, this is a pretty tame example of what I'm taking about.

I totally agree that CEO compensation is out of control. Wall street CEO's got huge bonuses last year... for what? Wall street's sucked for years. None of them deserve bonuses. However, that's just my opinion: They aren't taking any of my money so I have no real interest in what they make. This is true for a lot of other businesses, as well. The thing is, like our political process, the problem ultimately lies with US. All of us. These CEO's are giving themselves huge bonuses they don't deserve because the stockholders are letting them do it. If you don't like what a company does, buy some stock and go to stockholder's meetings... DEMAND that the extra cash be paid in dividends or re-invested in the company. If the company's performance is bad DEMAND that the CEO be terminated. Similarly, we keep buying their products, essentially "voting" with our wallets. So, in summary, even absent government controls these CEO's and private businesses only have as much power as we give them. Going back to my example of Wall St, I took all my money out of Wall St a LONG time ago: They're not going to write themselves a big check while MY mutual funds tank! f*** 'em! However, if other's want to participate in that insanity, well.... that's their problem.

And my take on the corporate scams, that problem lies with enforcement, and neither party takes it seriously. I agree that we need more "policing" in areas where there are force and fraud involved. Enron's accounting scams were just ridiculous. Hell, *I* would expect to go to jail if I pulled that poo! In any case, we need politicians that are willing to shed some political capital and make a priority of that.

Similarly, we have the same problem with our political system. We keep getting losers because not enough people get involved in our political system. Voting is not enough: Learn and articulate the issues and work on primary campaigns.

One more thing on the scandals: Wait until the lot of these "creative" mortgages go into foreclosure. Lack of standards in lending the last few years have created a MbuttIVE amount of mortgage loan fraud. And, who is carrying many of these loans? FANNY and FREDDIE! In any case, as with Wall St, I'm out of the housing market: I'm just laying low until the mess blows over.

Well, that's just my 2c.

Have a good one, -GB