Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

And I think Republicans tend to overdo the budget deficit thing. It was on Reagan's watch that the national debt nearly TRIPLED from 1981 to the time he left office. And it is thanks to Dubya that the federal govt. is soaking in red ink again after the surplus years of the Clinton administration.

If you remember Reagan devalued the US dollar to make it more competitive agaisnt foreign currency (targetting the Japanese Yen). By devaluing the US dollar, American made products became cheaper to buy against Japanese products. This was in an effort to reduce the trade deficit. Japan wasn't buying American imports to match imports coming into the U.S. market. Basically Japan was flooding the U.S. market with cheaper Japanese products.

Because the U.S. dollar was always strong, competing against the world market, we always had a trade deficit. We needed to lower the value of the dollar to compete. Trouble with that was that domestically, we began this tailspin in our local economy. One way to bolster that slide was (and still is) to lower the prime interest rate to get people to buy more and the housing market was the target to build our economy back.

Unfortunately the housing market has it's ups and downs as lenders became creative first after the Reagan administration came piggy back loans where lenders would let you extend your credit by looking at the perceived equity of the home you were going to buy and base an equity loan upon that peceived gain. The original mortgage was based on the value of the home at the time of closing. Now we have sub-prime lending.

This of course started this oscillation of housing prices where the eventuality was home forclosure and bancruptcies. This also created the next wave of home ownership as foreclosed homes were sold pennies on the dollar. And the foreclosures are happening again. Just look at the legal section of your newspaper and count the increasing listings of foreclosures. Now that the Feds are lowering the interest rate again, it may come at a good time when foreclosures will spark the next wave in home buying coupled with low interest rates. This is the prime time to buy when both are low (foreclosed home prices and low interest rates) and the wave builds until inflation peaks out and income begins to lag housing prices (as it just recently happened) and the next wave of foreclosures happen.

And the wave always seem to happen just before each presidential general election. Bush is doing what every president has done in the past just before election time, lower the interest rate to bolster the economy so it looks good for their party when it comes time to vote. Voters don't remember how they were three years ago, they go to the polling booths and check whomever they feel when their wallet is reminding them how to feel.

My wallet is telling me I'm better off now than I was during Clinton's administration, it was better off during Reagan's administration than it was during the Carter administration. So economically speaking, Republican economic values made my life better and richer so naturally I vote to preserve that.

[TuNnL]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

It was on Reagan's watch that the national debt nearly TRIPLED from 1981 to the time he left office. And it is thanks to Dubya that the federal govt. is soaking in red ink again after the surplus years of the Clinton administration.

By devaluing the US dollar, American made products became cheaper to buy against Japanese products. This was in an effort to reduce the trade deficit ... So economically speaking, Republican economic values made my life better and richer so naturally I vote to preserve that.

You are still not addressing the national debt problem, Craig. We’re one of the richest countries in the world. Why should we owe anyone a cent? We need to pay down some of that. Vote Ron Paul!!!

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

You are still not addressing the national debt problem, Craig. We’re one of the richest countries in the world. Why should we owe anyone a cent? We need to pay down some of that. Vote Ron Paul!!!

We owe ourselves money. Remember the US dollar isn't backed by anything. It's a promissary note, an IOU to the Federal Treasury to pay back. That IOU is in the trillions of dollars and it keeps rising. It always has and it always will. Even during the Clinton administration. From 1993 until 2001 during his time in office yes he did balance the budget (erased the deficit) but our national debt went up from around 4T to just over $5.5T. Then Bush Jr. took it from that point to $9.0T Yes Bush spent about a half trillion dollars more than Clinton but hey we had a war to fund, Clinton didn't.

In any case even during Clinton's administration we were still in a major debt with the some of the biggest gains in debt occuring during the Clinton Administration. The sharpest increase of course was with Bush Jr. but if you were to look historically at our rising national debt, from 1945 to 1991 the national debt never hit over $1T. Bush Sr. took that debt over the Trillion dollar mark to around $3.5T but he had the Gulf war to fund.

When Clinton took over the rate of increase continued to rise taking a debt from the Bush administration and propelling it to just under $5.5T.

You can balance your checkbook but if that balance occured from an infusion of cash from your credit card, you still owe plenty of money. In this case the US Government's credit card has no credit limit, it just keeps printing more money when it needs it and tells the credit card company I'll pay you next week Tuesday. So If your checkbook is in the red by Billions of dollars all you do is whip out that Treasury credit card and zero it out. But you still have a credit card bill to pay now. Clinton left a debt to Bush Jr of around $5.5T with no major wars to fund. How did he do it? Well he did manage to zero out that check book we call our national debt, but boy did he ever tap out that credit card.

To put it into perspective, Bank of Hawaii is happy with your overdrawn checkbook with funds put back in to balance it. But Capital One is getting a bit concerned at your huge balance you owe them. Get it? We robbed Peter to pay Paul.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

We owe ourselves money. Remember the US dollar isn't backed by anything. It's a promissary note, an IOU to the Federal Treasury to pay back. That IOU is in the trillions of dollars and it keeps rising. It always has and it always will.

"We owe ourselves money." Oh puh-leeze!

Obviously, you are totally unaware that more than 40% of the US federal debt is held by foreign entities, including the central banks of Japan, China, as well as those in Europe and the Arab region. Japan reportedly has $1 trillion dollars while China has more than half a trillion. These are dollars purchased by foreign govts., with the idea of keeping the value of their own currences lower and to make it easier to sell their own exported goods in America.

But this can't continue forever. Sooner or later, one or more of these countries that we are selling dollars to (in effect, it is America "borrowing" from foreigners) will say, "enough is enough" and they won't purchase any more dollars. When that happens, we as Americans will face some harsh realities, just like a spendthrift who is desperately trying to apply for new credit cards with the idea of using it to pay for all the other cards that he/she has maxed out. Already, some countries have announced intentions to reduce (not increase) their dollar holdings. Another unmistakeable sign that the gig is up is that fewer and fewer of the dollars going overseas are being purchased privately, as foreign investors are now balking at purchases involving US dollars. Conversely, the US Treasury has had to pressure the central banks of these foreign countries to pick up the slack, but once again, how long can this go on?

Of course, no one in the Bush administration will ever talk about this. Neither is this the kind of topic that Rush Limbaugh and his Ditto Heads will ever engage in. But then again, they're the type not to care about programs like Social Security being raided. Neither are they likely to have children enrolled in Head Start and other services that are especially vulnerable to budget cuts during hard times.

We should all be so lucky.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

Deleted post.

[pzarquon]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

Um. Can we keep the focus on our past votes? I'm sure our explanations are enough to explain our current politics. For everything else, there are plenty of other threads.

Anyway. My first presidential vote was for Ross Perot. I was a fan of Frank Fasi and saw the entertainment value of having someone kooky in office. After that, straight Democrat... but usually as a vote against the Republican candidate.

I have libertarian tendencies and have voted "L" in local races. Especially when the candidate was also a professional escort...

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Who'd You Vote For — Ever?

Um. Can we keep the focus on our past votes? I'm sure our explanations are enough to explain our current politics. For everything else, there are plenty of other threads.

Okayyyyy