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

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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:06 PM
Original message
Poll question: Financial Meltdown, Great Depression: Who's the right target of your anger?
Edited on Mon Jan-26-09 01:08 PM by JackRiddler
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!!!)
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:08 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. Ding! That would be "System"
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:51 PM
Response to Reply #5
26. That would be Reaganism
thomhartmann.com
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Cetacea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 02:04 PM
Response to Reply #26
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.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 02:57 PM
Response to Reply #26
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.
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AngryOldDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 08:32 PM
Response to Reply #1
36. We have a winner. n/t
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villager Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:09 PM
Response to Original message
2. A system based on infinite consumption, on a clearly finite planet, was bound to fail sooner...
...or later
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GliderGuider Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-09 12:58 PM
Response to Reply #2
41. Absolutely! This isn't an American financial problem, it's a global cultural problem. nt
Edited on Tue Jan-27-09 01:00 PM by GliderGuider
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closeupready Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:09 PM
Response to Original message
3. Those who aggressively pushed deregulation.
They are most to blame.
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Idealism Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:10 PM
Response to Original message
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."
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Joe Chi Minh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. More a consummation.
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Earth_First Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:13 PM
Response to Original message
7. Another vote for "The System" n/t
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:14 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:20 PM
Response to Reply #8
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.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:15 PM
Response to Original message
9. The systemic problems going back to drum roll
reagan, bush I and yes Clinton and of course shit for brains
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Auggie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:16 PM
Response to Original message
10. Option 2. The system has been methodically working its way into government
Edited on Mon Jan-26-09 01:17 PM by Auggie
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.
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:17 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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bdamomma Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:33 PM
Response to Reply #11
21. yes, Ronnie got the ball rolling to this current disaster.
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dbonds Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:17 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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SOS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-09 12:24 PM
Response to Reply #12
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
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Winterblues Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:18 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:22 PM
Response to Original message
15. Addendum: The system includes the corporate media who provide its daily cred, of course.
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #15
19. Word
n/t
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lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:25 PM
Response to Original message
16. Bushitler, his minions and the richies.
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TheKentuckian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:25 PM
Response to Original message
17. Bush just accelerated a system already quickly
digging a deep hole.
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:27 PM
Response to Original message
18. false choices, false results
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:32 PM
Response to Reply #18
20. Please feel free to clarify, o alpha and omega!
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. your either/or choices are too limited to reflect answers to your question..........
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Xenotime Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:33 PM
Response to Original message
22. My anger will never stop for * and his evil deeds.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #22
32. Mine neither!
But it was still a logical development of the system. The system has to change.
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lifesbeautifulmagic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:39 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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Coyote_Bandit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 01:44 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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blindpig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 02:01 PM
Response to Original message
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.
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MADem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 02:09 PM
Response to Original message
30. I vote for both. A perfect storm--an imperfect system plus an asshole equals a big fat mess. NT
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TWiley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 03:37 PM
Response to Original message
33. Deregulation is the cause. "Deregulated = not prosecuted"
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Hubert Flottz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 03:39 PM
Response to Original message
34. Bush is the root of all EVIL...
A major Evil Doer!
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-26-09 08:31 PM
Response to Original message
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!!!

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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-09 07:12 AM
Response to Reply #35
37. Send me $1000 and I guarantee* you will see a return as high as 17 times within a week.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-09 12:07 PM
Response to Reply #37
38. Provisionally final before the offer ends kick.
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Bolo Boffin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-09 12:35 PM
Response to Original message
40. How far is a rant about the woes of fiat money below the surface of this article and poll?
One wonders.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-09 01:41 PM
Response to Reply #40
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!
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