Free Republic

The Word of God is offensive and scandalous to all who are perishing.

I am not a religious man, but I totally understand the gravity of what is happening today, and the ramifications it will bring.

I am reminded of the old movie version of the "Exodus", and the scene portraying the breakdown of the Jewish society with the end result being the worship of the golden calf.

One can easily substitute today's reality with the reality of more than 2000 years ago.

History repeats.........endlessly it seems....

I can’t say what I am thinking.

I have owned 27 GM cars, have 2 now. The next one is a Ford, just for them not chasing the carrot.

I must say, that every GM owner should buy a Ford........at least once in a lifetime.

I bought two....Both would never stay in alignment, overheated anytime they were asked to work hard, but they rode nice...........LOL......

The new company is expected to honor the claims of secured lenders, possibly in full, according to the source.

Based on what they have done with Chrysler, this statement, with the one and only exception being the United Autoworkers Union, is utter BS! They completely screwed the bondholders, who are, or I should say... were, first in line secured..... They overrode U.S. contract laws, State laws, local laws and even the Magna Carta to give the Union the company. Fiat is nuts to have done business with this government. Absolutely nuts.

Buffet does not need credit ratings, as he does not use borrowed money. He loans money to banks.

This downgrade is more useless drivel from the now useless ratings agencies who all rated AIG’s CDS’s at AAA+.

Yup.......

Libs have no class, no moral center.

Fake is just another cool state of being to them. Fake....Real.....true....false.....what’s the difference to them?

Sorry Travis....My cut and pasty thingy fouled up....I was just replying to your point about the flack and flucked it up.

In other words I agree with what you said.

Ain't that the truth.. .

I'm sure there is a lot more flack to fly over....especially on this particular birch perch. :-)!

Yeah....I know.

Rush has that view as well, but he is not always right.

I view the damages done to the party over the past 6 years as being much more serious then many here believe.

I'm not saying it can't be repaired, but I think that it will take quite a while and the party has more pain to endure first.

I don't see that this time around.

The reason we self destructed is largely because of divisions within our base that even with this loss and devastation shows absolutely no sign of healing.

The party was doing OK until divisive issues emerged and were pushed to the forefront by various associated and like minded groups within. These issues and issues like them were previously given less priority and were generally overlooked when they interfered with party unity which was viewed by most as being more important then the issue.

That has undeniably changed in favor of continuous churn and turmoil as various groups fight to win power and thus their issue advocacy within the party with little or no importance placed on coalition building and retention.

This mindset while not entirely new, has now become prevalent and I see no reversal, much less healing within what once was a broad based coalition of various interests with a common platform.

While nothing would please me more then a return to the Reagan era coalition, I don't believe it to be possible unless and until the damages have been mitigated by time and a new mindset reemerges.

Four years does not seem to be enough time, and much pain needs to be endured to change a mindset. This is why I said what I said.

There has been so much effort by the democrats to damage our brand that the destruction is almost 100%. They still continue to do it and I see the results right here on this forum everyday. All this has to be overcome before we can regain ground, and the dem's must self destruct as well.

6-8 years maybe, but four seems unlikely at this time and in four years, with this mess running the show, there may well be no Washington DC to reclaim.

Liberals don't see their views as anti-American. They actually see it as hugely patriotic.

They see the U.S. as a sick patient that needs healing. Their world view is that we and other countries should all be the same. Be equal.

It is the communist utopia that they seek and nothing or no one will ever change that assessment except for one thing.....The school of hard knocks!

Class will be in session soon.

As for patriotism, they cannot even define it as we do because it is antithetical to their mindset.

3rd Armored!

Small world I guess...I was 3rd AD, 23rd Engineers....1969-72

Badeye, I don't think party will matter much in four years.

The republican brand is damaged beyond repair IMHO. I think civil unrest will take care of the parties as they are today. I think the biggest fear the American government should be concerned with right now, is it's people and that is likely a understatement.

Do what is in your own best interests....... That is what I have decided to do for me and mine.

We are stocking food (canned goods and things that keep without refrigeration), ammunition, fuel and other misc anticipated needs, and we are digging in!

Yes.....he and his ilk are indeed scary, but whats even more unsettling, is the American public. What it has gradually morphed into, and where it is likely to go.

In two years time, the reality will make the Boston Tea party look like a kinder-garden attempt at humor.

Gee! Ya would think that is this were 100% true, nobody would come to work....

Secondly, most all retail stores are highly dependent on the holiday shopping spree and employees know this. When everyone is off, they are working and it's always been this way.

There is always some goof with a sob story. They usually see the unemployment office in January.

This is a "all hands on deck" time for them. If you can tolerate it you get paid, if not, get out. Many do..... and many like it.

It is what it is.

The last one was the Hundai. It was a 94. It slung a cylinder through the block in 2003. It had 89K on it and was my wife's car for local drives. I never saw it again after I picked my wife up. I gave it away to the same junk dude who has picked up most of the others.(he likes my business but has been missing me since I quit buying the stuff. I have two chevys and a Yukon. I love the Yukon as it sits low with full running boards and heated leather. It rides like a caddy and get's good mileage for a 99. (19mpg)

The chevys are fairly new and the wife and kid drive them. Neither have cost me anything more then a light bulb or two. The Yukon needed a fuel pump and a water pump at 100K.....and a change of plugs. I plan to drive it til my wheels come off.

The last subaru was a hoot! The A/C unit exploded and blew the hood clear off it while I was doing 70mph. Needless to say that I never bought another. It was similar to the Outback. The Toyota PU rolled on a low speed corner, the rest have stories but those were the best ones.

Oh....I have a old chevy truck that I don't drive much as it has no AC. It is a 1967. It has some bondo but it is still original. No telling how many miles....

Yep.....I do see things a bit different from my perch.

Stability my rearend.....

Three Subaru’s.....

One Hundai....

One Nissan.....

Two Datsun’s....

One Audi.....

All sent to the junk yard with less than 100K miles....(One had 101K.)

Sorry, but my experiences over a lifetime are a bit different.

I strongly dislike sending my dollars to a foreign country to support the Yen. Even though some of these cars are made here, with American labor, the net profits from the business go to the parent company after tax and are only reinvested if they can pull more out of our economy.

The primary benefits from buying GM are linked to lifetime maintenance costs. GM has a very reasonable parts pricing schedule as opposed to the rice burners and German rigs. The replacement parts, and thus the insurance costs are lower and over the lifetime of the car or truck which BTW has as good as the Japs, the costs are substantially lower.

The jap cars have throwaway engines. A stinkin fuel pump or tail light costs a fortune! Plus they ride like a rock.

You buy whatever you like. I would not even consider anything else and I have owned them all.

I own and buy, and will buy nothing but GM cars and trucks.

I've had Toyota's, Nissan's, Fords, Audi's and I still prefer GM's.....

That's the story......No reason to change it.

It's now less than 80B. They are paying it off as quick as they can or replacing it with cheaper loans. The provisions on that loan will break them at 10% plus the stock dilution. On the Other hand, it also gives them about a 100B line of credit if they need it.

BTW, I have things to do, and places to go. The election is over and the self destruction of what is left of the party has begun.

I'm not hanging around to watch this, so I'm out of here for about a year or two.

Leaving now as I log out. I also logged off at Rush's 24/7. I no longer wish to hear his cheer leading of what is about to happen in this party. I helped build the damn thing, and I'm not watching it burn.

Later! Hope I gave you a better perspective from the wall street view.

Not going to go into the entire sordid tale, which by the way has only just begun to hammer mainstreet.

In short, the derivative markets are regulated by the SEC. They set the the leverages according to Congressional laws made by...................guess whoooooooooo...........

The system has been in place since I can remember, but was never in the 500T range until the boom beginnings in mid 90s during Clintoon. This mechanism is designed to spread risk!!! It worked as intended, however the risk was totally misunderstood by the raters. Amount of paper that was produced was in direct proportion to the amount and number of home equity loans and residential mortgages. The numbers of thes mortgages were spurred on by guess whoooooooo.....and as they increased the risks on these loans by statute written by guess whooooooooo, more and more risk had to be spread and this spreading was deemed good enough by the raters because it had always worked before.

None of this was done illegitimately or illegally. It was done as a result of legislation and as Fanny and Freddie loaded up with all these new mortgage packages as instructed by Barney Frank, they had to issue more and more derivatives. When the base market failed, and foreclosures began, the rating folks said...."OH Crap!" and began derating these securities. They are still doing this and in fact did another 40B of them today and every day.

As these deratings occur the value decreases and the holders lose all their investments......That's where the banks and investment houses come into the picture. It was not their fault that they bought triple AAA investment paper and it subsequently failed. It was not a lack of regulation that caused the failure. it was not bad management that caused the loss!

BTW, the real data you should look at is the percent of foreclosures on mortgages written in the last five years, not the total mortgages. More than half of the total mortgages are fine and just about paid off in full. It is the newer ones causing the issues and in some states over 70% of them are in foreclosure, going into foreclosure or foreclosed. Other places are better, but as more and more foreclose it lowers the values on the rest and they then foreclose because their loan to value ratios go away and the people just walk out of them.

I can't conceive of a single regulation that anyone would have employed in this mess that could have prevented this.

If it had not been for the derivative markets ability to spread risk, few loans would ever be made for homes, and we would be living in the 60s style of life and mostly renting.

To prevent this from happening in the future. We will be forced to return to that financial model with 20% down payment. Very few people will be able to afford to buy a home and that is as it was and probably should be. It will have to be that way to prevent bubbles from forming again due to pressure to sell homes to people who cannot afford them. It will be that way if they increase the regulations on derivatives by decreasing the allowed leverages.

The system has already made those adjustments. That is why money is all froze up. It will be a long time before it flows again, and only if the government takes all the risk.

In short, we will be a socialist country, or we will be living like we did 50 years ago. No regulation is needed as banks will never buy mortgage derivatives again unless 100% guaranteed by government since the derivatives markets for mortgages will either be untrustworthy or regulated to the point that it wont work and congress will have to make their own guarantees and take on all the risk they created as nobody will touch it anymore.

Congress broke this, and now they must fix it. But the financial system operates on trust! It is forever damaged and will not ever recover to what it was in at least a generation or two....maybe never.

No regulation will be required.

I had the voter card in my hand and wasnt listed.

Curious? When did you register, and did you vote in the primary or had you ever voted at that particular precinct?

I've been working my remaining trade money hard for the last few weeks. I managed to get a little back, but only about 6 or 7 percent. Not much left...lol.

I am in and out like a dive bomber. just renting, and not buying.

I think she will run for the senate, and win.

2012 may be too early as Nixon once commented about after his first loss, but 2016 looks like the date.

I have you beat with 92%.........

You do realize those are mutually exclusive courses of action?

Yeah.....I do...But it is what it is and as long as it continues we will be in the boonies.

You should never believe what you read on the Internet.

Hope that helps........

What happened is what always happens when a coalition breaks up before the election.

Turnout is low and you lose.

The fix is to stop attacking fellow republicans, and pick a better candidate next time.

Well.....LOL.....I was convinced he would lose when Governor Charlie screwed Romney, switched sides and gave Florida to McCain.

Then the A##hat could not even deliver the state.

I guess I was right.

Down ballot counting comparisons are worthless in most States. In my state there were no republicans down ballot. I had to vote for a Dem or a Green.

In the South, people switch all over the place. There is no straight ticket and most are Roosevelt Democrats anyway.

Well, that is what the elections boards are supposed to watch for. You can be assured that if the McCain staff had any news on a big fraud, it would be out.

But the facts remain that he even lost Florida and damn near lost Texas, in addition to Ohio, Pennsylvania and all the rest.

You gonna tell me that was all fraud.

There were a lot of folks who were not too excited about McCain, for obvious reasons. I am a broken glass type, but even I had problems getting to the polls. Hard to vote for a guy you have been throwing rocks at for twenty years.

The single issue types stayed home as well. The numbers show this.

The fact is, that the GOP is still trying to figure out why they are so disdained. I see people here arguing over this topic and I believe there are multiple reasons.

The most important of all reasons is the MSM's 6 year drum beat of Democrat propaganda that has affected the republican base as well. It seems they too bought the koolaid.

There was not a single republican on the Arkansas Ballot yesterday, except for McCain/Palin................

A few from the green party. The rest Dem's.

There is no GOP here anymore except for a weekly E-mail, likely from someones personal computer.

I wish any republican would show some freaking passion, show that you actually give a damn you lost

Well.......I have been expressing my disgust about this loss since shortly after the 2004 election. It's not possible to get any madder as this loss was completely expected.

How many failed websites do you have now?

There is not a one size definition for social conservatives. A large portion of them self identify as social conservatives yet had but one or two single issues that interest them and that's as far as it goes. It is these people who either voted for Obama or failed again to show up at the polls, as they have done time and time again.

They are high maintenance, and disruptive to the coalition and yes, I disdain them.

Just calling a spade a spade.

I've had my fill of it long ago. This is nothing new and I've been attacked and pilloried by the best of them.

At this point, I find it almost amusing.

These corporate types you trust so much, were suppose to limit their assets to these high risks investment in such a way that if they went bust at most a small percent of their assets will be lost. Instead these trusted idiots put so much of their company and other people’s money into these high risk highly leveraged investment schemes that the losses wiped out all ot the companies profits and then some. You still got the nerve to say trust them. By the way, after McCain picked Palin the GOP was closing in and in some cases lead BO in the polls until 25 Sep 2009 when corporate America did the GOP a great favor, their greedy schemes came home to roost. McCain/Palin never lead in the polls ever since. If you trust people who just screwed you, you still got alot to learn in life.

This screed is 110% populist claptrap! Those derivatives were issued to help cover risks associated with the requirements of congress to loan money to purchase homes for people who could not pass a rudimentary credit assessment. That derivatives market has been in operation for decades without issues. It broke down because of the interference of Congress into a well balanced house of cards called the financial markets. The markets under normal conditions tend to cut out the weak spots and shore up it's own foundations. There is no possible way to regulate this aspect. it is essentially self protection being done in real time.

When the congress essentially forced more risk at the front end, that risk had to go somewhere! It was distributed throughout the system and into the global markets. It had to be done to cover the front end. This risk would never have occurred without the Congressional meddling.

I hope you are getting perhaps a glimmer of understanding as to how this bubble was created and why it had to pop at some point.

However they cannot understand why a company making record profits plan to close factories and move them overseas to China and Mexico.

Do you have a ticker symbol for any of these companies that you speak of? If so, please pass them on because i trade stocks and would just love to buy into them.

The truth is, there is no such company!

I don't have a clue where or how you get your information about American business or any other business. You are completely off the wall. None of your assertions are even remotely true.

And just what the hee is a Reagan Democrat these days. Reagan has been dead for years, and the coalition he built has been destroyed, obliterated, erased from the face of the planet. The people who voted for Obama are simply misled or ignorant. Some are flat out stupid.

Lastly, before I waste another minute with a moron, We do not have a self regulated economy. it is highly regulated, and it was the manipulations of these same regulations that caused the housing meltdown. The democrats responsible for it have told you and the media that it was a lack of regulation that caused the mess and they are going to fix it. What they are really doing is covering there complicity up by blaming repubs and Bush.

But you and the rest of the fools suck that crap up like cocaine because it fits with your defective world views.

Have a nice day!

Corporate America!

Give me a break!

You sound like leftist anti capitalist loon. Corporations outsource because they are trying to save money. The reason they need to do that is because of high federal tax rates and competition from other global business. You can't protect them from it except to the extent that you tax their profits. Right now, it is better for them to move their ops to another country and here you sit, posting critical crap against them for doing what it takes to maintain the jobs they have in this country.

I fully expect a flood of them to exit this country in droves and with great speed as the Obama admin takes the reigns. It is then that you will discover just how much those evil corporations were doing for America.

Or blame Karl Rove for stepping aside.

He did not step away, he was pushed, just as Bush was and anything connected to Bush.

The conservative critics of the Bush admin continuously whine and cry about the lack of balls in taking on the Dem's. They have now completely flipped, accepting the MSM lines about Bush, the Obama talking points about the war to nowhere and have blamed him for there own shortcomings.

This was not Bush's fault in any way, shape or form. It was the breakdown of support within the base that was caused largely by trying to move divisive flaming hot issues prior to and during a very important election cycle.

Bush gave as much red meat to the evangelicals or social conservatives as he could have possibly done throughout his tenure. he gave red meat to the moderates, to the independents, to the broken glass repubs, and he did it boldly, and in spite of criticisms, yet when the time came to stand up for him, they all ran like scalded dogs.

Yeah, I know exactly where to place the blame for this debacle.

It's the same thing that happened when Dole ran. You are right, without their singular issues, they just stayed home.

Frankly, from my perspective, two strikes, and your out. I am tired of pandering to these selfish a$$hats.

I know this is a unpopular position but we have been here before with this debate. It's tiresome and has damaged the coalition more than once.

It's time to write them off and if they show up, great, and if they stay home ....great....

Just stop counting votes that are not there unless you want to drive off the independents, which we did anyway by simply getting in the habit of pandering to this segment.

There are alway some social issues that are good ones and have broad support. These issues need to be there, and if they are not enough then I say fish or cut bait.

I don't see that, except for a temporary time. Maybe two or three years.

On a permanent basis, they will do much more regulation. That is what will change the system, and it already has changed in anticipation of the coming regulation.

The socialization of losses will be temporary IMO.

Hmmmmmmmmm.......The expiration of the Bush capital gains tax cut is in 2010. They could write a new bill and cancel the old, but at this time, I doubt it. They can afford to wait till 2010 and use it as a offset for increased domestic bribery as usual.

Most investors, if not all, will not be paying a lot of cap gains. They, like me, have taken the losses already and don't benefit from any more. I am just trying to trim some of it off. But I can never get to break even, not even with a miracle from God.

Yeah.......A lot of people got a eye opener last night. Fortunately, my eyes were already open.

The public is in dire need of a educational experience, and they will now get one that will last for a generation or more.

i am pleased with that aspect, but I fear for our long term security.

On the bright side, the republican party will be able to move forward quickly to regain what we lost, once the back stabbing and self destruction abates. New leadership will emerge, and issue advocacy sorted out in a new and needed priority list.

Yes, change is coming but our change will be in direct opposition to theirs.

I couls say that it is about time we could all get on the same page.

Are we going back to the 70 percent rate income tax that Reagan took office with? Don’t think so, hope not.

I agree, that would be madness, but look for specific fees and sin taxes to skyrocket. Tobacco, booze, candy, soft drinks, you name it and they will hit it both federally and locally.

Yes, it should be very much like the carter term, only more dangerous. Much more damage will be done.

The wheels will begin to fall off this bus within 9 months, and if it all works out right, the RNC will see small gains in 2010, more in 2012 and by 2014 we will have congress back. Perhaps the presidency by 2016 or earlier. But by 2016 the Dem's will be hurting badly.

Neoconservatism?????

I don't see that, but what I do see is a Republican base who lost it's nerve during a war time president's second term and in destroying his legacy, they destroyed everything.

If a handful of ex democrat Jews can destroy a controlling political party with a hundred million supporters, I was never aware of it.

That is nothing but a media myth.

We lost because it was time to lose.

We lost because of some hubristic idiots who pushed the anti-immigration agenda up against a 10 year effort to make inroads in the Hispanic communities.

We lost because the coalition was being fractured time and time again by the efforts of one faction or another who wanted to control the party apparatus.

We lost because we deserved to lose and ignored the warning of many as far back as 2002, 02, 04, 05,06, 07 and even this year.

That's why.....

The margins are too big. This election was lost before it started. That is why McCain was put up.

There are much smarter people then us who figure this crap out ahead of time. The markets had Obama at 92% this morning.