[nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

ckrugman at sbcglobal.net ckrugman at sbcglobal.net
Sat Apr 24 14:05:22 UTC 2010


You also need to consider the impact of 9/11 on the economy as a whole 
during the Bush Administration.
Chuck
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "qubit" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled


>I am thinking there were other economic factors in the slump after Bush 
>took
> office. Enron and Worldcomm failed.  I think the prosperity during much of
> the Clinton era was due to fraud under the table, the extent of which 
> didn't
> become apparent until well into the Bush administration.
> I didn't wholly support either Clinton or Bush.  I just am pointing out 
> that
> when the blame game and finger pointing start, you can't point your finger
> at just one party or president.  I did take note of something odd 
> however --
> during the Gore/Bush election, someone made the claim that if Bush were
> voted in, the whole economy would fail.  Now really.  The outcome of that
> election was a surprise to everybody, but even so, how could the election 
> of
> any president cause that kind of effect? and who would know? Before John
> slams my mail as radical right wing, I am not. I tend to be for the
> underdog, especially if the underdog has a good idea *smile*
> --le
>
> --le
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 9:32 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get 
> labeled
>
>
> Yeah, you're talking about repealing Glass-Steagal (sp?). But I don't
> believe that was the main cause of the banking crisis. After all, other
> countries had their own banking crisises  and they never had Glass-Steagal
> in the first place.
>
> What happened was that the amount of money in the world available for
> investments doubled in a 10 year span from approximately 1997 to 2007.
> That's why banks had all this money to give to people for their mortgages.
> If you're wondering where all this money came from to give people half
> million dollar mortgages, it came mostly from China and India.
>
> You might wonder why we'd care if investors from China and Indai lose
> everything they invested in American mortgages. Well, there's that old
> credit default swap thing.  Banks selling the CDOs also sold CDSs. That's
> really what brought AIG down. Of course, a lot of American banks and hedge
> funds were heavily invested in CDOs too. So it wasn't just people in China
> and India who got burned when the housing bubble burst, it was people all
> over the world who owned CDOs. But the real culprit in the crisis was the
> credit default swaps.  Banks sold CDOs to people in China and India but 
> they
> also sold them CDSs. For an extra few points, you could ensure that your
> investment in the CDO didn't lose money. You might not make as much but 
> you
> couldn't lose. Its called hedging and smart investors do it all the time.
> Hence the term "hedge fund".
>
> Congress is working on a bill to regulate derivatives like credit default
> swaps. There are lots of kinds of derivatives besides credit default swaps
> and Congress is working on a bill to regulate them. Who knows if it will
> have any teeth. Probably not.
>
> Anyway, all this is why I say I don't think repealing Glass-Steagal was 
> the
> primary cause of the banking crisis. If it hadn[t been CDOs, it would have
> been something else. The banking crisis had a lot of causes but number one
> on my list is probably that derivatives weren't regulated. Still aren't.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Wm. Ritchhart" <william.ritchhart at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 7:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get 
> labeled
>
>
>> The banking slime really did not get going until the Congress and
>> President,
>> (Clinton), removed much of the Depression era bank regulation.  Just to
>> prevent anybody claiming I am Just Clinton bashing, It was a Republican
>> majority in Congress.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of John G. Heim
>> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 12:55 PM
>> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get
>> labeled
>>
>> Holy cow, I keep hearing this argument and each time I just become more
>> boggled. How in the world can someone argue that a banking crisis
>> resulting
>> from poorly enforced government regulations proves that we don't need
>> those
>> regulations? Its to ridiculous for words.
>>
>> If you claim that the banking crisis came about because the government
>> failed to enforce its own regulations, that doesn't show that we don't
>> need
>> the regulations. In fact, it quite clearly demonstrates how *much* we 
>> need
>> them.
>>
>> Saying capitalism didn't fail is like saying the Titanic didn't sink. It
>> was
>>
>> just that an iceberg got in the way. Yes, capitalism did fail. Government
>> also failed but what it failed at was keeping capitalism from failing.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
>> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 3:07 AM
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get
>> labeled
>>
>>
>>> Notably, most of the fraud that people blame on the "money crowd" that
>>> caused the financial debacle was the result of about three large firms,
>>> who were basically paying the government to not do proper oversight,
>>> combined with the government's own socialized mortgage industry which 
>>> was
>>> operating ridiculously.
>>>
>>> Capitalism didn't fail, government and private corruption failed.
>>>
>>> A bunch of blind people debating it on a mailing list aren't going to
>>> suddenly find the magic pill to fix that problem, because none exists.
>>> We
>>
>>> do have several recessions and a couple of depressions to look at for
>>> what
>>
>>> did and didn't work, but even those things that did work are not a magic
>>> pill.  There are still bad times to suffer through.  The remedies that
>>> work just make the bad times go away faster.
>>>
>>> I think we're nearing the end of the useful debate on the topic of
>>> liberal
>>
>>> vs. conservative vs. party affiliation on this list.  It's clear to me
>>> that Ryan's list has merit because there are more people in line with it
>>> than its target audience probably thought.  I think that says what need
>>> be
>>
>>> said on the matter.
>>>
>>> Joseph
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 07:29:24PM -0500, David Andrews wrote:
>>>>Yes, the government wastes some money, but so does private industry,
>>>>small
>>
>>>>business, and everybody else.  No process is perfect, there will be some
>>>>waste, fraud, and everything else in any process.  Look at the financial
>>>>debacle we are just coming out of.  I don't think government is any
>>>>better, or worse at running things as anybody else.  The money crowd
>>>>wants
>>
>>>>to be left alone, until they mess up terminally, then they want the
>>>>government to step in, no strings attached.
>>>>
>>>>Dave
>>>>
>>>>At 01:25 PM 4/21/2010, you wrote:
>>>>>Hello-
>>>>>I'm just going to put my two cents in here. I think that when the
>>>>>government does stuff, it ends up swallowing up a lot of money that is
>>>>>wasted. I have spent several months applying for jobs in the federal
>>>>>government and it has been a bit of a comic sketch. At the same time,
>>>>>we have people in our society for whom we need to care, and the fact
>>>>>is that any point in time, most people end up in that position.
>>>>>Ideally, we would privately take care of this on our own- people
>>>>>within a community would rise up and put together their own education
>>>>>system for their kids and for all of them, we would help people out
>>>>>with food when they needed it, doctors and therapists would take on a
>>>>>few patients and clients pro bono at any one time. But until people
>>>>>choose to do that over buying that brand new car instead of continuing
>>>>>to drive it even though it is no longer the latest and greatest, we
>>>>>need to have the government programs on which to fall back. That
>>>>>doesn't even address the fact that certain communities have a deficit
>>>>>of such resources.
>>>>>
>>>>>At my own church, I am in charge of organizing local community service
>>>>>activities. We have a solid core of people who give generously of
>>>>>their time and energy and money, but there are others who are very
>>>>>much occupied by the things in their own lives and they just don't
>>>>>really contribute to anything. Fortunately, most will give to others
>>>>>in some form, but there are a lot of causes and people out there to
>>>>>give to. I am personally in my mid 20's and my peers are a notoriously
>>>>>self-centered population. I know some people who meet that discription
>>>>>and others who do not. Honestly, I don't know what you would need to
>>>>>do in order to try and meet the needs of others. However, as a person
>>>>>with my masters in counseling and with a lot of personal experience
>>>>>working with people who are needy in both an emotional and physical
>>>>>sense, itt is absolutely not as easy as giving them money for food
>>>>>each month. Talk to me one on one if you want to know what it looks
>>>>>like to try and quote unquote "help" someone with schizofrenia or a
>>>>>personality disorder.
>>>>>
>>>>>In addition, I am currently taking a class on universal media design
>>>>>at the local state university. The principles of the class have to do
>>>>>with  making media and web sites accessible to everyone, whether they
>>>>>are using an old computer on a dial up connection, using a smart
>>>>>phone, the latest and greatest computer with whatever internet
>>>>>browser, they are hard of hearing,  or a use a screen reader. Despite
>>>>>its principles though, I have had to do a lot of self advocacy. They
>>>>>have us learning about java script from on-line clips that do not
>>>>>provide enough information for me to keep track of what is happening
>>>>>in the visual part of the training. Someone asked me to give feedback
>>>>>on the web site for the business association of downtown Denver in
>>>>>preparation for the AHEAD conference here this summer. It is all in
>>>>>flash, and I was unable to get any content off of it. The business
>>>>>association doesn't feel particularly obliged to change their web site
>>>>>at all, even if it also means that people out for the night cannot
>>>>>pull up their site on a smart phone. The conservative principle is
>>>>>that economic forces will convince them to change it, but they aare
>>>>>not yet terribly interested. Along the same lines, the web sites at CU
>>>>>are often times poorly designed to the extent of decreasing
>>>>>accessibility, but as a whole group of sites are looking at being
>>>>>redesigned in the next couple of years, the man in charge of it
>>>>>doesn't know the first thing about concepts such as the W3 standards.
>>>>>I met with him and showed him a bit about what makes his current site
>>>>>that he manages difficult to navigate with a screen reader. Maybe he
>>>>>will be motivated to learn more, butthus far people outside of
>>>>>disability services at the university have been pretty apathetic with
>>>>>regards to making accessibility improvements to sites. All of this is
>>>>>just to say that I don't tend to find that the best ideas win out; too
>>>>>many people are caught up in the concept of how things have always
>>>>>been done and "it works for me, so it's fine."
>>>>>
>>>>>With all of this having been said, I vote we stick with putting
>>>>>concepts out there without needing to label them as being part of one
>>>>>group or another. I am all for innovation, change, and progress. No
>>>>>political group gets to lay claim to those words and my use of them
>>>>>does not put me in any one group.
>>>>>
>>>>>Amelia
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Amelia Dickerson
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
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