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Posted on 12/21/2008 10:33:43 AM PST by rabscuttle385
Everywhere you look these days, someone is being rewarded for bad behavior.
Wall Street bankers, hedge fund managers, mortgage lenders, even homeowners who knowingly bought homes they couldn't afford -- all have abandoned the moral high ground and are now heading down to bailout town, where the fat cats dine.
With bailouts seemingly blowing in the wind, it's hard not to feel like a chump for being fiscally responsible.
Does it still pay to play by the rules?
Peter Schiff, president and chief global strategist of Connecticut-based brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital, believes government policies are undermining people who behave well, while rewarding those who are irresponsible.
The government is sending out the wrong message by letting everyone involved in this financial folly -- lenders and borrowers alike -- escape the consequences of their actions, says Schiff.
"People say, 'Oh, this isn't fair that people have to suffer,'" he says. "Well, yes it is; they made their bed, now they have to lie in it."
(Excerpt) Read more at bankrate.com ...
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I just got a call from the RNC, asking for a donation. I told the kid on the phone to tell the RNC Chair that Bush’s bailout was the final straw. They were never getting another dime from me unless and until they began once again standing up for the free market.
The kid admitted he was hearing that a lot these days.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Marriage Penalty comes to mind.
As one of those who played by the rules, I have a small nest egg put away in savings and CD’s.
Printing money like it is going out of style will cause inflation ,which will steal that small nest egg as surely as any thief.
ping
I stopped getting RNC calls...I registered as an (I) last year.
Of COURSE it pays to play by the rules! You just haven’t been aware of what the REAL rules were...
Yea and could really give a rats ass
I’m glad they don’t have my phone number, but for those of you who are sick of their junk mail, I offer the following:
They finally stopped sending me their crap after I Freeped their buildings (310-320 First Street SE and 425 2nd ST NE) using the great DC chapter Freep techniques. It’s really as much fun freeping these RINOs as it is freeping Code Pinko or the Dems.
These RINO suits are in business for the money, to become Congressional staffers, and eventually, to hold office as they vote for pork, illegal immigrants, Sara Brady style gun control, etc.
One of the best digs I used: At Republican Senatorial Hqtrs (425 2nd ST), they were holding a Friday afternoon beer and b-b-q outside the building in a courtyard. From the sidestreet, I could see a bunch of placques on the cement wall (presumably for donors). I yelled “How many Wheaties box tops do I need to get one of those placques?” They were visibly uncomfortable—Ignore him! Say nothink to him! (Col Klink imitation)
When I got home on Monday, I wrote a letter with my name and address telling them I was the guy outside their offices the past Friday. I suggested that they REALLY might not want to send me their junkmail “surveys,” “charter member” certificates, etc. ad nauseum. I got their attention after at least three letters and three phone calls to them did not. Few things are more annoying than phone solicitations so I say to all—annoy them right back!
F ‘em!!!!!
I LOATHE the term “social engineering”
Engineering is, by definition, based on things that work.
For example, in the past I'm sure that my own reputation was considered much less that Madoff's.
I bet it's not today. And a good reputation is a prerequisite for good opportunity.
The Madoff's of the world can have their ill-gotton gains - I'll stick with my reputation.
It is too early to set up a mass meeting in Washington and drag out naked all the politicians. People are not ready at present. However, we can start thinking about it. How precisely do we move hundreds of thousands into DC? How to feed them etc. How do we deal with the rapid strike brigade the corrupt pols are bringing home to protect themselves? Lots of questions need answers. In short, people need to start thinking the unthinkable.
What a badly written article. The author sets up Schiff then offers three dissenting views, two of which actually support his claims if you follow consistent logic. The other guy just offers ‘I think’ and ‘I believe’ with no backup.
all those responsible people who have been biting the bullet and paying their mortgages, high interest rates and all, and haven’t been late, the govt. is basically giving the finger too. or people like me, who knew i couldn’t afford a house and have been renting.
it’s the same with the illegal immigrants. steal id, or use fake papers, given a get-out-of-jail-free pass. your ave. meth-head or criminal that happens to be a citizen and steals id or uses fake papers, you get time in jail.
i’m disgusted by it all.
unlike a lot of talking heads, homeowners share the responsibility for this mess. greediness all the way around.
We are a banana republic. Don’t kid yourselves otherwise. Our current economic model isn’t the Great Depression or Japan in the 90s, it’s modern day Argentina.
Oooooooooh, a signed form!
I'm sure people who deliberately signed legal mortgage loan docs they knew they couldn't meet are really going to be intimidated by a "I swear I'll play by the rules this time" signed form.
I know someone who has only made 8 house payments in the last year. They are seriously waiting for the government to help them with their mortgage.
Yes poor behavior is always rewarded by government.
Inflation is seen by many as being preferable to DEflation which will devour the economy from within once the prices start to fall and commerce stalls.
Once thing to consider is where money can be made in a market that is headed where we are. It has happened and many people came out smelling like a rose.
Take real estate - for instance: prices have been dropping and banks that are too dumb to restructure loans are taking back property that they can't afford to keep. Thus they sell that property for considerably less than it's worth. If a property was worth $250,000 last year and someone has lost it because they couldn't service the $180,000 balance on their mortgage and the bank will now unload that property for $120,000 there is some money to be made by shrewd investors who can buy and hold until inflation drives the prices back up.
Some funds and individual stocks are in the same sort of curve right now.
If a man can attain the Presidency, never having proven he is a natural born US Citizen,,,,should anyone else in our country give a damn about any rules? No.
But as Wm. F. Buckley Jr. (I think) pointed out, "social" negates the following word -- for example, "social justice," "social science," "social security."
Thanks!
I actually feel better having heard that!
Ah, but since the government makes up the rules as it goes along, it always plays by the rules. And we lose.
Bump.
And they are going gung ho now because of Obama's victory and the victory of Democrats all over the country. I see an attitude of mean-spirited glee and "we're gonna get you sucka".
So I look back on history and take note that when the secularists ruled, millions upon millions were imprisoned, tortured and executed.
I sometimes think to myself, oh Jan, you are getting paranoid. Yet, in those countries where absolute horror occurred, I'm sure in the beginnings, many people thought that stuff like that couldn't happen there.
I read another forum for nurses and they have a premium area for non-nursing and healthcare "stuff" and 2 of the threads deal with US politics and current news. The libs have taken over those and run roughshod on Republicans, Christians, conservatives. There have been posts that out and out say the Republican party should not be and religion (especially Christian) should be outlawed in this country. A few of them know the communist tactics well - ridicule the other side over and over and it's worked. Hardly any conservative posts anymore.
I won't buy a premium membership because I don't want to have to spend my hard-earned money to be ridiculed and, dare I say it, treated like the Jews were in Germany. So the sickness is seeping down to ground level - where we all live and work.
Peter Schiff is gaining respect and credibility, since he has been the voice crying in the wilderness, mocked and scorned for the last few years, as he predicted the future with great accuracy. The Ron Paul affiliation is of concern, but I am reading and studying Schiffs analysis. This debate video from 2 years ago is amazing:
It doesn’t pay to play by the rules?
I could have told you that after years as a young adult trying to find a girl as a good guy.
The housing bubble made it impossible for me to buy when I relocated on my last job transfer, because prices were insane. I saw they were and refused to pay them. I saved instead. Now I am buying a nice house at a great price, only half its peak price a year and a half ago, and I am able to borrow for it a 5%.
Have some of my 401k investments dropped in price? Sure, which is fine by me because I don't need to sell them. I am saving more continually which means I am a net buyer, and lower prices benefit me, therefore. I won't be selling for decades, the only prices that matter a lot to me are the ones prevailing then, and I'd rather get to wherever that is on a lower curve than a higher one.
Some of the government's recent proposals make it marginally easier for me - house downpayment interest free loan for example. Most make no difference to me either way. I don't care if some of their actions hold prices a little higher, there are still more than enough reckless people forced to sell, for me to have my pick of properties at fair prices.
Stop whining. Sensible, self reliant people don't need your whining any more than they needed the bubble.
“Imagine what our society would become if we created moral rules not on the basis of their inherent rightness or wrongness but by how a lot of people actually behave,” he says. “By this line of reasoning, we would have to say that lying, cheating and stealing are ethically permissible or even laudable. This, of course, is ridiculous.”
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Ridiculous? Talk to Bill Clinton.
I totally concur. There has been a large push for our media, colleges, judges, and the like.
Check this video and you will learn more about this:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k6KUDv1wzraWhwlBt1
If I stop paying my rent for three months, can I get a rent reduction?
Engineering is, by definition, based on things that work.
Social engineering works alright, even if the people they engineer don't.
It all depends on the end product that you want. Government "engineers" amoral, lying, cheats who vote Democrat.
There is not very much time. The Pols have instantly given away our children’s children chance at prosperity to the greedy sharks in putting up trillions of taxpayer obligations to finance their frauds.
Galloping Gertie?
Textbook classic about how NOT to do things!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw
Yes, (social) engineering of the sort these government types use will have the same end result.
Catastrophic collapse.
He's a socialist, and an idiot, but I repeat myself. I'd like to see what he thinks these aspects and tendencies are. Unless he can come up with fixable aspects and tendencies, he's just given up on the entire Republican economic platform.
Bankers and fractional reserve banking have been plaguing folks for millennia.
Crooks in government have been doing Ponzi schemes for millenia.
These are not flaws in capitalism. Both capitalism and a free Republic depend on character. The first to honestly engage in trade, the second to honestly stay out of the business of trade.
Kristol is letting the Democrats and Bush off the hook for the criminal mismanagement of the CRA act, Fannie and Freddie oversight, Medicare Prescription Drugs, and the Federal Reserve for feeding the booms of the last decades. We've got a human problem here. We've got the wrong humans running the show.
Kristol has this totally wrong.
Nuttin’ fine about a bunch of selfish elitists liberal crooks runnin’ the globermint. Tryin ‘ to replace their knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, and good intentions with the Holiness of God unwillingly to listen, read, study, accept, and do their best ti live by The Word.
Only today it looks like a bad old joke!!!
The latest example of downright fraud being enforced by our beloved federal government is this sick joke called DTV with our new little $40 government subsidised Digital CONverter box mandated by the Federal Communications Commission by February 19, 2009!
I hooked mine up to my over the air, broacast TV tuner/receiver that utilizes the traditional antenna on the roof. Now I can no longer see PBS, which many would consider a blessing, and all the weaker stations from the San Francisco Bay Area are gone, many more would consider that a further blessing, and even the Sacramento channels that blast into my antenna keep frequently breaking up into thousands of intermitent little jumbled squares in totally unitelligible visual nonsense!!!
I am just certain that some criminals conned our Bush administration controlled FCC into this scheme/scam against analog TV with the promise of continued good uninterrupted service on DTV converters.
THE DAMNED THINGS DON'T DO THE JOB!!! I disconnected mine and am thinking about looking for a lawyer tomorrow morning!!! I have seldom felt so totally screwed by a governmental mandate that is yet to be finalized!!! This must be repealed!!!
If I can't afford to get relief from the courts, I'm prepared to seek my satisfaction in the court of public opinion.
However, I fully expect this is only going to affect us rural voters/dwellers and will become a further example of "rural cleansing" perpetrated by our governments in the USA ever since the Earl Warren Court wrongly decided about 50 years ago that "cow don't vote!"
I would appreciate any and all comments from either city slickers, or rural renegades like myself!!!
If you need me to do anything, just let me know.
Do you have the same problem, or are you on satelite or cable and have no concern with this on a personal basis???
The first thing I would ask anyone to do to help define this problem is to ask around with those with antennas still on their homes and see if they've tried the converter box yet. Kind of a polling, if you will... And let me know what you find out after you tally up the response you get.
Thanks for your quick response!!!
That's because politicians want to be able to escape the consequences of their own actions when necessary, and can't afford to set any precedents that might come back to bite them. ;)
“I read another forum for nurses and they have a premium area for non-nursing and healthcare “stuff” and 2 of the threads deal with US politics and current news. The libs have taken over those and run roughshod on Republicans, Christians, conservatives. There have been posts that out and out say the Republican party should not be and religion (especially Christian) should be outlawed in this country. A few of them know the communist tactics well - ridicule the other side over and over and it’s worked. Hardly any conservative posts anymore.”
I’m just taking a break from that forum for a little post-election rejuvenation here at freerepublic. I’ll be back. . .
Zashagalka.
Think of it as "the democrat way".
You probably don’t want the same lawyer, you hired decades ago when you found out that your buggy whips didn’t work on the Model T’s. :)
Hey bud!
I know what you mean. And I look so forward to reading your posts there when you get back . . . !!
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