I'll take my chances in a great depression against pampered bullshit millionaires ANY DAY.

[RadiationTherapy]

I say we keep our money and let's do this. When the depression hits, I know which side of the "gated communities" I'll be on - the outside along with millions and millions of others. I absolutely have class war in my heart and I don't see what giving 700 thousand million dollars away is going to help.

[ixion]

1. bailout or no bailout, this is our future...

we should just get it over with, rather than continually prolonging it, thereby making it worse.

[Virginia Dare]

6. I'm afraid so too..

this is just delaying the inevitable, plus our children and our grandchildren will end up paying for this bigtime. We ought to collectively take our lumps to try and give them a better future. They didn't cause this mess.

[FatDave]

69. Exactly. Get it over with.

The sooner we end our usury-based economy, the better.

[Jade Fox]

2. You're a fool......

"Class war" sounds so romantic and all, but go talk to someone who lived through the Great Depression before you wish that on this country (world!) again.

After hearing my relatives talk decades later about being paid in potatoes, etc., I want no part of a major economic collapse.

[Virginia Dare]

4. We're already in a class war..

and not of our own making, and they want us to pay what little money we have left to prop it up. It's sickening.

[RadiationTherapy]

8. You're a fool if you don't see that war has been waged for generations now.

I will tell you this in no uncertain terms: The wealthiest of this country hate the poor. Despise them as inhuman. There are scores more who long to be wealthy because they despise poor people. We are the 'useless eaters'.

I am a nonviolent man. I am certain the hardships of living will be more than enough "violence" for this country, so I stand by my original assertions: The wealthy are weak and dumb when it comes to survival. I will take my chances as a 'depression survivor' against most of "their" chances any F'in time.

[Jade Fox]

10. It's the poor who will suffer the most in a depression.....

The wealthy my lose a few assets, but they'll get by.

[RadiationTherapy]

13. Gee. Just like the poor suffer most NOW? I know where the shit stops rolling.

I say call their bluff. Our society is fake, plastic trees anyways.

[Jade Fox]

15. The poor will suffer MUCH more than they are now.....

in a true world-wide depression.

It's one thing to be poor in a society of relative wealth, and a much different thing to be on the bottom economic rung of a society whose economic system is in full collapse.

[RadiationTherapy]

16. There's only so far down to go.

So, what, we have to sow some seeds and farm? (to be perfectly understated. I realize farming is a difficult and largely lost skill).

This is a "matrix" situation, right? Continue the dream as slaves or wake up to a difficult, painful, scary REALITY. I am a reality kind of guy.

[Toucano]

29. Your an idiot kind of guy.

You realize the fertile fields are mostly covered by mini malls now, right?

You realize the soil that remains has lost much of it's natural fertility and can only be coaxed to produce food with expensive oil based fertilizers, right?

You realize your utility company may not be able to buy fuel to generate electricity if the dollar truly collapses, right?

You realize we're 300,000,000 people now living largely urbanized lives now, right?

You realize that we are highly dependent on technology to provide drinking water to that urban population now, right?

You realize that if there's no electricity or fuel to run the pumps, that water won't flow, right?


Wishing for a Great Depression scenario and not raising a hand to prevent it (if possible) in order to punish the rich is the ultimate in cutting your nose to spite your face.

You're the left's version of a Rapturist.

[Javaman]

31. "You're the left's version of a Rapturist." Bingo!!!

Man, that statement speaks volumes!!!

these left "end of times" nuts have to get the shit out of their eyes and heads, they haven't a fucking clue what a depression is like.

[Sebastian Doyle]

41. Oh now there's irony....

Using the "anarchy" symbol as an avatar while defending the rich bastards who have raped and pillaged this country, and mocking "the left".

Exactly what kind of "anarchist" are you anyway? The kind that carries a government badge in their wallet while stirring up shit in a ski mask at protest marches?

I think I saw you in Seattle in 1999. :puke:

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. They are left wing libertarians

I got mine, screw you mentality...

[RadiationTherapy]

37. Oh my. I never thought of ANY of these startling pieces of reality!

Gee. Whatever will I do?

[spoony]

54. Very VERY well put

[JDPriestly]

64. Jade Fox, I would be on your side, but it is too late.

I prefer reason and cooperation, but history sometimes moves very fast. We are beyond a bail-out now.

Get Obama into office and get the country united behind Democrats who can balance the interests of all of us. That's all that we can do right now.

Paulson and Bush closed their eyes as this crisis developed. Their plan is a trap.

[sendero]

74. do you really believe..

... that this latest bailout is going to really do much?

Do you believe that the greedy bastards that created this mess will fix it if we just keep giving them more and more printed money?

Face the facts, this game is already over. Does anyone want what is coming? I sure don't. But wishing that Uncle Sugar and his Greedy Banker Friends (including Paulson who came to this job from Goldman Sachs just to save millions in taxes, and who will probably go back to Goldman when it is over) would fix their mess is the height of naivete. You really trust these assholes with 700 billion dollars? THEY CREATED THIS MESS. THEY DID IT AND THEY DID IT ON PURPOSE BECUASE IT MADE THEM LOTS OF SHORT TERM MONEY.


I'm not saying there should be no government intervention. There will have to be at some point. but this bailout, or anything that look much like it, should be what gets drowned in the bathtub.

[galileoreloaded]

30. You are smack in the middle of a collapse. Read JK Galbraiths "1929-The Great Crash"...n/t

[Greyhound]

44. The war already exists but has, until now at any rate, been waged by

only one side, theirs. Buffet did the talk show circus 10 years ago talking about this very thing (check the sig line), but has been largely ignored.

It has always been us against them and it's high time we noticed it.

[JDPriestly]

62. Jade Fox

It's too late. The die is cast. We are already in that depression.

The Bush administration came to Congress at this late date because they have known about this coming crisis for a long time and hoped to prevent the public from becoming aware about it until after January.

The Bush years have been marked by every worsening crises. Bush is Oedipus Rex. Until he leaves office, our country cannot be healed. He has brought plague after plague to our nation.

There is no point in trying to fix this until after Bush and Cheney are gone.

The job now is to focus on getting Obama elected. Then we can unite the country and handle a balanced recovery of our economy.

There is no avoiding the depression. It is here. The Paulson bail-out is a drop in the bucket compared to the problem. Read this excerpt from the article link below (LIBOR is the London International Banking Overnight Rate which is key in keeping banks liquid):

May 13 (Bloomberg) -- The benchmark interest rate for at least $347 trillion of derivatives and 6 million U.S. mortgages is set for its biggest shakeup in a decade on concern that banks misquoted their true borrowing costs.

``The Libor numbers that banks reported to the BBA were a lie,'' said Tim Bond, head of global asset allocation at Barclays Capital in London. ``They had been all along. The BBA has been trying to investigate them and that's why banks have started to report the right numbers.''

. . . .

ICAP plans to start the New York Funding Rate as the accuracy of Libor, a benchmark for corporate loans, at least $347 trillion of derivatives and 6 million U.S. mortgages, is being called into question. For the first time since 1998, the British Bankers' Association, which oversees Libor, is considering changing the way it sets the measure, according to Chief Executive Officer Angela Knight.

http://financialenglish.blogspot.com/2008/05/understanding-libor.html

[FatDave]

70. My mother grew up in the great depression.

She went through it as a child. I know what it was like. I'm not afraid.

[Virginia Dare]

3. That's my thought too,, let Wall Street go down..

use the 700 billion to create new jobs. Wall Street ain't gonna bring those back.

[Eric J in MN]

61. Build factories which make consumer products the world wants...

...to buy.

That would be a better way to spend $700 billion, for the long-term strength of the US economy.

[Orsino]

5. Not all of us are equipped to fight a class war.

We need a civilized win of some sort for the sake of the kids, elderly and other helpless folks.

[RadiationTherapy]

9. I will not be violent except in defense. I will not be raiding rich people's homes.

Can't speak too much for the other HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of working poor and middle class who have been raked and raked and skinned alive for 75 years.

[Orsino]

11. I will not wish Madame Guillotine on our nation. n/t

[RadiationTherapy]

14. I won't wish, but I won't get in her way, either.

Times of great change are times of great opportunity as well as great loss. I can see why the controllers have tried to put this off as long as possible; I am ready to see where the chips may fall.

[hfojvt]

33. skinned alive for 75 years

:rofl:

Why only 75? It so happens that my dad will be 75 in December. He is off on another long road trip with my mom. He's upper middle class and has hardly been skinned alive his whole life. None of his five children have known serious deprivation either, with the possible exception of myself, who decided to drop out of society and live on the land for a year. You want deprivation? It happens outside of society - no phone, no lights, no motorcar - things the vast majority of our society have enjoyed, nay, indulged in, these last 75 years. You think that the poor do not have far to fall, but if society falls into the gutter, many of the poor will fall into the grave. As if a large group of Americans are part of the 2 billion people in the world living on less than $2 day. :rofl:

[RadiationTherapy]

38. Oh my! No PHONE!? no LIGHTS!? People will DIE!

Oh, well, don't revoke my membership in Eden; I want to stay right here!

[spoony]

59. No electricity, no heat, yeah they wil die actually

How many people are acceptable losses to you? One million? Ten?

[Buns_of_Fire]

65. No phone! No lights! No motorcar! Not a single luxury...

Like Rob-in-son Car-oo-so, it's primitive as can be! (I'm sorry. Damned synapses make their connections at the MOST inopportune times...)

[patrice]

7. It's going t hit anyway. It's only a question of when.

[RadiationTherapy]

39. I agree. That is why I would rather keep the 700,000 million. nt

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. Don't forget that there is a safety net that did not exist .......

during the depression. Social security, unemployment insurance, medicaid, etc...
As a matter of fact, all that would not exist today without the Great Depression. The middle class we knew in the 50's, 60's, and 70's was the byproduct of the Depression and striped the republicans of power for 30 years.
I do not want to see one but I don't trust shrub and his people either. They do not propose anything unless it helps the ultra-right conservative movement....period. The health of the nation has never been a priority to them.

[demodonkey]

17. Medicaid's a joke. Sure you can have it after you sell or lose whatever little you & your family...

...have worked for all your lives. Tough luck someone got sick, spend down or lose everything if you want coverage.

WE NEED SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE. Too bad that is one safety net that we could not get through after the last Great Depression-War cycle, like the UK did.

[cali]

19. uh, wrong. My mother gets Medicaid. She hasn't had to sell off any assets

none. zip. She hasn't had to sell her home or anything else.

[demodonkey]

23. Either your mother has less than $2000 to $2400 in savings or life insurance, or YOU are wrong.

If you are a regular middle class family, with some savings and assets (other than a home and one car, yes you CAN keep that much), you pretty much have to spend or lose everything else. If an older person has to go into long term care they take everything that person has worked for in terms of pension and social security -- except $40 per month out of which you are expected to pay all your 'personal expenses' like clothing, shoes, grooming, etc. Yes you can keep your home, but how do you pay its upkeep on $40 per month?

And DO NOT TELL ME I AM WRONG. My family is going through this RIGHT now so HOW DARE YOU. It's degrading enough.

John Conyers' HR 676 -- EVERYBODY IN, NOBODY OUT. Covers everything for all ages (including long term care for the disabled) and SAVES MONEY over our current greed-driven private insurance-based system.

[Thothmes]

35. Medicaid or Medicare?

[Texasgal]

68. Medicaid is much different than mediCARE.

With Medicare you cannot have any assets the gov't WILL take what they want.

[mmonk]

18. If a depression hits, many of us will lose what we have and

we're not rich nor the cause. So how should I take your words?

[RadiationTherapy]

20. You should take my words as: we are very close to an economic crash. What happens after is

anyone's guess. I feel it is inevitable, so sending 700,000 million dollars to maintain this short term illusion is indicative of americans' unique ability to be incredibly short sighted.

[ThomWV]

21. You need to educate yourself as to what the Great Depression was like

Just go read for a couple of hours. Find yourself some accounts from the Great Depression, then see if your hair-brained post still makes any sense to you.

We must do anything and everything to make sure that a depression like that never happens again - and by the way, it was not sound economic policy that brought us out of the Great Depression, it was the Second World War that ended it. You want to see number 3?

[dionysus]

22. um, the rich people will still be rich and you'll be pickingthrough a dumpster for food dude...

:rofl:

[Javaman]

25. exactly, these people on DU hoping for a depression just haven't the

foggiest clue as to what they are talking about.

[Sebastian Doyle]

46. Seems that you are ignorant of history yourself.

Herbert Hoover bailed out the banks 6 months before the Depression. Obviously it didn't help. Except it made Wall Street bankers like Prescott Bush and his fellow Nazi loving shitheads richer.

How the Hell is bailing out the Wall Street Gambling Casino - which is far more corrupt than it was in 1929 - going to stop the next Republican Depression?

[RadiationTherapy]

26. Ummm. I have fed my family from a dumpster "dude".

Is that so fuckin funny to you? I'm not afraid to approach life. I don't need this saran wrap existence.

If dumpster diving is so funny (and scary) to you, call your congressperson and support the 700,000 million dollar bailout.

[Javaman]

32. I think the point is, you won't be alone.

everyone will be fighting for that dumpster.

[RadiationTherapy]

40. I don't think there will be anything to eat IN the dumpster. I was just rolling with the metaphor.

[dionysus]

34. the point is genius, the rich people won't be picking through shit.

we will be fucked, they won't.

and i call bullshit on your dumpster diving claim.

[RadiationTherapy]

71. link?

[dionysus]

72. link you to what, common knowledge?

:rofl:

ask the rothchildes, morgan, rockefellers, and chase families how tought the depression was for them...

[RadiationTherapy]

73. Oh! I meant "kick". Sorry. nt

[HughMoran]

49. Exactly - it won't be the rich who suffer if a depression hits

It'll be scum-of-the-earth people like me and you :(

[Javaman]

24. Do you honestly have any idea what a depression entails?

here is a description that was told to me by a friend of my parents.

"imagine your broke. then imagine everyone on you block is broke. then imagine that everyone in your town and city are broke. got that? then think about the last time you ate a full meal. Now imagine that meal was 3 days ago. Now imagine that your next full meal won't be for another 3 days. Now imagine that that meal comes from someone you don't know. And it comes in the form of of soup after waiting in a line for 2 hours with hundreds of other people waiting for that same soup. Now imagine that you arrive late for that soup line. Imagine now, when it's your turn to get that soup, they have run out. That my friend is what the depression was like."

Now, do you really really still want that depression? We have no fucking idea what it's like. And again if you really really want to know, go to a retirement home and ask anyone that is over 85 years old. They will tell you what it was like.

[TZ]

27. So you'd rather EVERYONE suffer

because of the misdeeds of a few.
Nice. Read up on the great depression sometimes. Hey, suicide,despair, hunger, disease, suffering is all okay as long as the rich get a kick in the nuts?
God help this country if this is the attitude..whats the difference between I don't care if the rich suffer and I don't care about poor people? A D or an R after your name. And neither attitude is healthy or appreciated.

[Sebastian Doyle]

47. Have you read Thom Hartmann's article at CommonDreams.org?

Or did you hear his show today?

Bailing out these PREDATORY BASTARDS will not stop another Depression. It did not stop the first one. It did not help the Japanese in more recent times.

There's no valid reason to bail out the useless pieces of shit who caused this problem in the first place.

[RadiationTherapy]

50. Thank you for writing this. In my haste I came across as wanting a depression

rather than expressing that I feel it is inevitable.

[Sebastian Doyle]

53. No problem.

Sometimes I wonder about some of the people on this site. I'm positive there are DLC employees, NRA shills, and tobacco lobbyists posting here. (Their posts are self evident)

Would Wall Street shills be much of a stretch? Considering how quick some are to defend these financial vampires, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. :(

[watercolors]

28. You do not want to be in a depression!!

What is the matter with some of you people? Use your head and think ahead as to what can happen to this country without the help!! You are delusional!!!

[RadiationTherapy]

36. Well, I am not going to bother trying to compose responses to everyone's posts.

I see that there is a great deal of fear about this collapse that I do not want to propagate further.

I can only speak about myself: I will not be in many soup lines. I will not have issues dumpster diving as I have done it many times in my life; it is kind of a useless point because dumpster diving will not be worthwhile by then. I will not be afraid of having to rebuild this world. I will do all I can to protect my family and friends.

As I have encountered in the past, what I consider tolerable and worthwhile is often radically different from what so many others consider tolerable and worthwhile. I apologize for disrupting the board.

[TexasLady]

42. I listened to horror stories

from my grandmother; First baby dead, from diahreah. Third baby born in a leaky tent on rented land, with a butcher knife and two shoe strings for cutting the umbilical cord. Listening to your kids cry because they are hungry, and finally you scrape up some cornmeal and a little grease to make some cornmeal gravy. Killing small game, only to have asshole relatives steal it from your kids. Pulling along a baby on a cotton sack, picking cotton and your fingers bleeding from the cotton bolls, in 100+ weather, from sunup to sundown. and on and on and on...
And she was 19 in '29.

[sfwriter]

45. Amen, we can do this! A Big FU to power - no bailout...

Remember, 700 billion can be loaned to provide liquidity to the firms that survive bankruptcy. It can act as guarantees on crucial transactions for food and fuel, and bankruptcy will provide some sunshine on the shadow financial system.

[HughMoran]

48. I've already lost 10's of thousands

Thanks for wanting to stab me and millions of others saving for kids college & retirement in the back!

[RadiationTherapy]

51. So you want every family in america to pony up 10,000 dollars?

You were prepared to invest and accept risk in this economy; I a prepared to accept the risk of surviving an economic collapse.

I really don't want to go through this, but I feel it is inevitable. I am not "pro-depression"

[HughMoran]

52. You want to devastate my family?

You are awfully blase about the calamity you would wish upon my family.

[RadiationTherapy]

56. ALLLLLLL through the dayyyyyyy, I Me My, I Me My, I Me My....

We are both very focused on ourselves and our families; I wish your family all the best.

[HughMoran]

60. I'm with the poster below "SKIP IT"

You're self-absorbed and could give a crap about anybody or anything best I can tell.

[spoony]

55. "skip it"

Yeah, I know the new system isn't in place anymore, but this sort of bullshit makes me wish it was still here.

[question everything]

57. And how, exactly, are you going to keep your money?

Mines come from my employer. If he cannot sell his products because people cannot afford them; if he cannot get enough credit from the banks, there goes my job.

You may have a class war in your heart, but most Americans do not. They don't hate the rich; they want to be rich. This is why generations of immigrants have come to these shores.

I think that most people who are against the bailout just do not think things through, or just do not care. Once they are out on their luck they will seek help from the government, except there will be millions of us and the help will be meager, if at all.

And, of course, forget about access to health care or being able to retire.

[RadiationTherapy]

58. I am thinking beyond money. What a limited scope. I certainly don't expect to packing

ugly, green paper in hopes it somehow has value again. I plan on surviving and rebuilding this society.

The desire to "be rich" is a mental illness and a grand illusion.

i do not think you and I have enough common ground to continue talking.

[LeftishBrit]

63. The already-poor, sick, elderly or very young would suffer in a great depression much more than

most of the 'pampered bullshit millionaires'.

The millionaires, even under bad circumstances, would mostly retrieve enough to survive. They might not be quite as pampered as they had been, but they won't starve. It's those already close to the margins who generally fall by the wayside.

I don't agree with an unconditional bailout, where the bankers keep their big bonuses at the expense of the taxpayer. I think there needs to be lots more regulation and tightening of the whole system. But some of the comments here almost make me think of those who think 'let Armageddon happen; the deserving will be raptured'. I do not want an economic Armageddon - and if it happens, the whole world will suffer.

[CrispyQ]

66. Last year when my mom passed away, I found her ration stamps from the depression.

If we go into a depression this time, there will be no ration stamps. "Rationing" will take the form of cash -- if you have it you will be able to buy all the gasoline, sugar & medicine you want. If you don't, you will be fucked. There won't be enough soup kitchens to feed the masses.

Most people have such a limited scope of community that an economic crash will turn neighbor against neighbor. The crime rate will skyrocket. You'd better be armed & prepared to guard anything of value that you own. And if you don't own anything, you will be viewed with suspicion by everyone else, who will worry that you are out to take theirs. It will be ugly & violent to a degree I don't think you can imagine.

I realize your argument is that this is inevitable, & maybe it is. But the smugness of your post is despicable.

[alarimer]

67. Rich fat cats have been waging class war on everybody else for generations.

I dearly hope some pampered billionaires end up on the bread lines.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

75. yes, we can all become hobos and hop trains

See the USA for free....eat beans out of tin cans around a campfire... the camaderie, the simple life... neighbor helping neighbor.

the Depression was so romantic :/

:sarcasm: (plus sadness)

[Name removed]

77. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lib2DaBone]

76. Hey Radiation! I agree....I got my pitchfork right here...