Financial Meltdown, Great Depression: Who's the right target of your anger?

[JackRiddler]

Poll question: Financial Meltdown, Great Depression: Who's the right target of your anger?

The system = capitalism, market religion, trickle-down, deregulation, faith in eternal economic growth, the idea of making money from money. The real-existing financial sector of derivatives and hype. The billionaires and bankers. The ruling class. Federal Reserve system. The ratings agencies.

Your choices:

1) The Bush regime was an extreme aberration of the system and more at fault for the financial crash than the system.

2) The system itself is more at fault for the financial crash than the Bush regime, which was a logical outgrowth of the system.

(EDIT: To put the Bush regime in the past tense. Was. Was. Was!!!)

[slackmaster]

1. OPTION 3

I blame Congress, every Presidential administration back to and including Reagan, the sin of greed, and lack of basic financial education in public schools.

[JackRiddler]

5. Ding! That would be "System"

[omega minimo]

26. That would be Reaganism

thomhartmann.com

[Cetacea]

29. I like Hartmann's consistent focus on the Reagan damage,

I am no economist but rolling back the tax code to pre anti-christ years sounds good to me.

[JackRiddler]

31. But that brings us to system, without a doubt...

Reaganism -- roughly meaning neoliberalism or trickle-down economics combined with military Keynesianism (war spending) -- were the reaction to the systemic crises of the 1970s, undertaken at the time with the broad and passionate consensus of almost the entire ruling class. One should note Carter was already forced away from his original ideas and into the policies of heavy military spending and social program cuts already two years before the Reagan wave came to power.

[AngryOldDem]

36. We have a winner. n/t

[villager]

2. A system based on infinite consumption, on a clearly finite planet, was bound to fail sooner...

...or later

[GliderGuider]

41. Absolutely! This isn't an American financial problem, it's a global cultural problem. nt

[closeupready]

3. Those who aggressively pushed deregulation.

They are most to blame.

[Idealism]

4. Bush was not an aberration

He was just another neoliberal free-market fundamentalist that thought, as Reagan did, that "Government was/is the problem."

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. More a consummation.

[Earth_First]

7. Another vote for "The System" n/t

[merh]

8. Bush just took advantage of a system designed with failure in mind.

"Only the strong survive" recognizes that there will be failure or rather, that many won't survive.

[JackRiddler]

14. Yeah, I think of Bush as a mafia "bust-out" operation.

It's the family modus operandi, in fact: They locate some dilapidated property with rotten foundations, intimidate the owner to let them take over the management, have their banker friends give them a loan to renovate it, lose the money in Switzerland, let their street friends deal drugs out of the building, strip the fixtures down to the plaster, take out a government-backed insurance policy, burn it down, stand outside for a decent interval wailing that they are so sorry they were so stupid and never saw any of this coming, and then drive off in a very looooooooooong limousine, delivering a final barrage of automatic rounds at the firefighters as they go.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. The systemic problems going back to drum roll

reagan, bush I and yes Clinton and of course shit for brains

[Auggie]

10. Option 2. The system has been methodically working its way into government

for decades. Most of Congress answers to it. Since it takes connections and lots of money to get elected to office I don't see much room for change until voters take an active interest in politics at all levels, and stop voting by celebrity, pattern or familiarity. Federally funded elections would help too.

[Warpy]

11. Ronald fucking Reagan

All we're seeing now is the fruits born by the destruction of the New Deal, started by Ronald Fucking Reagan.

It's exactly the same dogma that brought us the first Great Depression, some of it word for word.

[bdamomma]

21. yes, Ronnie got the ball rolling to this current disaster.

[dbonds]

12. It is just the end result of free market capitalism

Free market theories are just an idealist dream for those that think greed is a virtue to motivate people.

[SOS]

39. From an NYT op-ed from Berlin Germany on the economic disaster:

“This shouldn’t surprise you,” my octogenarian neighbor, formerly an exemplary comrade in East Germany and still a convinced socialist, smugly remarked. “It’s the great crisis inherent in the transition from monopoly capitalism to state monopoly capitalism; in other words, the final stage of your system. Under the Communists, kids learned about this process in grade school.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/opinion/16peters.html

[Winterblues]

13. IMO 90% of our financial/economic problems stem from our lack of Health Care.

It is virtually impossible for US Corporations to compete with corporations from other countries because of the Health Care burdon placed upon US corporations. Because of this HUGE disadvantage more and more people end up without any coverage at all and that is a large reason for the many bankrupcies and forclosures. Americans just can not compete when they are stuck with HUGE Health Care expenses and no other country has that problem. Most every other country actually takes care of their citizens but in America everyone is on their own. It is called "Compassionate Conservatism" and has led to the economic disaster we are currently facing.

[JackRiddler]

15. Addendum: The system includes the corporate media who provide its daily cred, of course.

[XemaSab]

19. Word

n/t

[lonestarnot]

16. Bushitler, his minions and the richies.

[TheKentuckian]

17. Bush just accelerated a system already quickly

digging a deep hole.

[omega minimo]

18. false choices, false results

[JackRiddler]

20. Please feel free to clarify, o alpha and omega!

[omega minimo]

24. your either/or choices are too limited to reflect answers to your question..........

[Xenotime]

22. My anger will never stop for * and his evil deeds.

[JackRiddler]

32. Mine neither!

But it was still a logical development of the system. The system has to change.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

23. the system, meaning

the republican mantra of no regulation, no government interference, and the system meaning how we elect our leaders. I mean if it takes a million dollars to get a senator elected, who do you think that senator works for, certainly not for me.

The system meaning the "free market", as simple as this....when investors are valued about all else, the labor MUST go where it is cheapest.

[Coyote_Bandit]

25. I blame

fear and greed - and everyone who has ever allowed these emotions to influence their financial and purchasing decisions.

So in my book we are all to blame - though not equally.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. Twenty-eight years of Reaganomics and its Repubilcan and pseudo-Dem enablers

There were points at which some of the damage could have been reversed, but the "moderate" Dems always sided with corporate interests.

[blindpig]

28. It's capitalism, plain and simple.

Why beat around the bush?;)

Ain't no aberration, regulated capitalism is the anomaly, it cannot be maintained for long, the money always comes roaring back.

Capitalism IS The System.

Bush ain't nothin' special, any ruling class shit head would do more or less the same.

[MADem]

30. I vote for both. A perfect storm--an imperfect system plus an asshole equals a big fat mess. NT

[TWiley]

33. Deregulation is the cause. "Deregulated = not prosecuted"

[Hubert Flottz]

34. Bush is the root of all EVIL...

A major Evil Doer!

[JackRiddler]

35. Kick! The time to VOTE is NOW! This poll is only going UP, UP, UP!!!

As picked by Cramer and given an AAA rating from Moody's!!!

[JackRiddler]

37. Send me $1000 and I guarantee* you will see a return as high as 17 times within a week.

[JackRiddler]

38. Provisionally final before the offer ends kick.

[Bolo Boffin]

40. How far is a rant about the woes of fiat money below the surface of this article and poll?

One wonders.

[JackRiddler]

42. But I support fiat currency. Every community should have its own.

Your sniffing around for Paulist Heresies (among the Marxists, no less) raises the question of who your own inner Republican might be: Arlen Specter? Gerald Ford?

Got it: Nelson Rockefeller!