Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Now Greece? What the?

What the Hell is the matter with our elected officials in Washington?

Let’s be brutally honest here from the perspective of both political parties. We haven’t had decent financial leadership in the Whitehouse since Ronald Reagan. Republicans have to take the blame for the exorbinhant spending they idly not only sat by and watched, but also participated in during the Bush years. Democrats should be incensed over the ridiculous attempts this administration is making to spend our way to prosperity. National healthcare, auto bailouts, bank bailouts, financing 11 million illegal border crossing criminals, and on and on.

Now, on top of everything else, the American taxpayers are very likely going to contribute 50 billion dollars of the 60 billion offered to Greece to prop up their economy and supposedly keep the country from collapsing. This comes on the heels of the news that Greece’s bond debt rating has been dropped to junk bond status.

I am puzzled about something. Haven’t we been in the worst recession here in the United States since the great depression? Is not business revenue down? Haven’t wages been frozen in many industries to try and cope with this down turn in the economy? Aren't we facing a huge tax hike already to finance all this wasteful spending?  Why, Why, Why, do we continue to try and be big-brother to the entire world when we are on the verge of catastrophe here ourselves?

What puzzles me the most is why we, the 300 million people that are citizens of these United States, let the 500 or so people representing us in Washington get away with this crap? Time to take back control and give the incumbents a wipe this next election.

Call your Senators Baucus and Tester and tell them enough is enough. Call congressman Rehberg and ask him why he wasn’t as financially conservative during the Bush years as he is claiming to be now?

I have come to the conclusion the political party rhetoric by both the Democrats and Republicans is just a smoke screen to enable the 545 elected officials to continue to run rough-shod over the rest of us.

Call them, I did.

14 comments:

  1. 50 billion here 50 billion there because there is plenty more where that come from just start the presses

    Do you think what happened to Greece can happen here to? I do and I think it is closer than anyone admits

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  2. I just had a great idea to help out Greece with their financial troubles.

    Why doesn’t our Havre Mayor send his two financial geniuses that he takes advice from to Greece as Ambassadors to help get their financial house in order? Jimmy the Greek is actually from there and would be able to communicate with the prime minister and translate for Kaul. Kaul could tell them of all the many wonderful things he accomplished at the BN before they sent him down the tracks and Jimmy could use his sad experience operating that Greek place to tell them what doesn’t work.

    It would be a win-win for everyone. We would be rid of those two, Greece would recover from the financial mess they are in,Kaul and Jimmy could get a picture with the prime minister to add to the "Important people and me" album, and with a little luck Greece would adopt them both

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  3. Reagan SUCKED just ask the unions.

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  4. HDC said: "We haven’t had decent financial leadership in the Whitehouse since Ronald Reagan."

    O.K., that made me laugh. Have we forgotten Reagan's push for deregulation and how that worked out?

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  5. Reagan created a very large tax increase via social security, a good thing.
    funded Iranian weaponry via the contra scandal, made ollie north - who circumvented the constitution as well as reagan, a conservative/constitutionalist hero - a bad thing.
    took credit for being in charge while years of a failed state finally eroded - remember communism is a failed ideal.
    laughed, laughed at jimmy's ideas of solar and wind (where would we be now if...) oh well, i guess he was great right...
    but he did say it was morning in America.

    in regards to the rest of your post, i will call them.

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  6. What's the source for the U.S. contributing 50 billion?

    We couldn't contribute 50 Billion unless we can print money we do not have! oh yeah I guess we can. We loan them money so we can pay interest on it....

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  7. I think you forgot that we were NOT in debt when Clinton left office. Something the oil greedy Bushies quickly took care of.

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  8. Willow, you are correct that Clinton had 3 budget surpluses and Bush had 1. 1998-2001 had budget surpluses; however, the context is important as well. The U.S. has run a deficit every fiscal year since 1969 with the exception of the 4 from 1998-2001. Even 1969 was a once in a ten year fluke. Since 1955 its only been 8 times. I do not mention this as a justificaion, but it the context matters. The highest budget deficit prior to President Obama was the $450 billion deficit run by Bush in the last year of his Presidency. President Obama's first deficit was $1.2 Trillion and is projected to be more than $1 trillion for the next 10 years. The bottom line is they all have contributed to this mess.

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  9. It is not just Greece that is in financial trouble, much of the EU is experiencing financial instability.

    The financial problems are global, with very few countries unscathed by changes in market. Its all over the news that European stocks are doing just as poorly as American.

    I don't know what the solution is, but I do agree that we should not be lending money to other countries when we can't even take care of our own citizens.

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  10. Beerogre, the information we used came from a story we read in the Wall Street Journal 3-4 days ago and the headline was something to the effect "60 Billion for Greece-Who pays?"

    It is being loaned/given by one of those united group deals that the US is always carrying the load in........sorry I already tossed the paper

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  11. Willow,
    You are confusing debt with deficit. Debt is total money you owe. Deficit is this years operating expenses vs. income. We had a surplus for a few years under Clinton. We were never out of debt. Quick comparison. You deposit more money into your checking account than you spend- you have a surplus. You spend more money than you deposited into your checking account-you have a deficit. Either way, you still have a mortgage on your home-a debt.
    Another little tidbit is that even though we had a surplus during several of the Clinton years, we went further into debt each of those surplus years.

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  12. "I believe first of all that we now need nothing short of a world constitution for the global financial system." -British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Call me a Kook, but it sure does seem like the ushering in of global regulation and eventual global governance.

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  13. Bert Your right! The same big money banks that are screwing up greece are putting it to us and have been since 1913, There is a reason Andrew Jackson fought 8 years to "Kill the Bank" Central bank that is. Yeah we get to pay for it now because they want to destablize us now lookie:

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/guess-whos-paying-for-the-greece-bailout-thats-right-you.html

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