Venezuela's debt becomes the riskiest in the world

As an aside, credit default swaps are a form of insurance, even a necessary one. They allow the insuring of government bonds or other such instruments against default.

However, like normal insurance, they should be somewhat regulated. Only, owners of the instruments should be allowed to insure the instruments. Otherwise, there is an incentive to game the system. If your neighbor insures your house against fire, he has a motive to burn it.

Secondly, the amount of insurance should be reasonable -- value of instruments, plus interest. Otherwise, if you insure your house for three times value, you have a motive to burn it down.

"Back in December, CMA DataVision announced that Venezuela’s debt had become the riskiest in the world. In 2009 alone, the total outstanding debt of PDVSA, the country’s state-owned oil firm, grew by 42 percent, reaching $21.4 billion. At the start of 2010, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez significantly devalued the national currency with the hope of mitigating his financial problems. But this heightened inflation fears: As Reuters noted, economists are predicting that Venezuela’s annual inflation rate for 2010 could be anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent, or perhaps even higher. (Venezuela already has the highest inflation rate in Latin America.) In late February, Erich Arispe of Fitch Ratings said that Venezuela’s currency regime “has not only failed to either prevent capital flight or increase macroeconomic stability, but it has also deepened macroeconomic distortions and increased the vulnerability of the economy to the dynamics of international oil prices.”



Earlier this week, Carlos Henrique Blohm, president of the Venezuela-U.S. Chamber of Commerce, offered further evidence of Venezuela’s fiscal woes. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Blohm reported that, thanks to asset seizures by the Chávez regime, Venezuela currently owes $12 billion to chamber member companies. Some 28 member companies -- nine of which have done oil-service work for PDVSA -- have had their assets nationalized by Chávez, and “22 have received no response from the government to their requests for compensation.” Chamber members “are also owed about $7 billion in delayed dollar sales at the official exchange rates.”


http://www.weeklystandard.com/...aily.asp#blog-422493

US economy already collapsed until Bush and Obama bailed out the banks.

As long as the Corporate Media keeps the people disinformed and going around in circles they continue to play with our money.

The US has its problems. The People's Socialist Paradises of the EU, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela have theirs, in spades.

quote:

US economy already collapsed until Bush and Obama bailed out the banks.

As long as the Corporate Media keeps the people disinformed and going around in circles they continue to play with our money.

The US economy did not collapse. It would not have collapsed without the bailout. There were many banks and lenders who were fine. If the failed banks were allowed to naturally go out of business, the successful ones would have acquired their assets and carried on. That's how business works.

Instead, Bush left office after borrowing billions to prop up failing companies. That doesn't solve the problem, it simply covers it up and will create a bigger one in the future.

What I find funny is that the original posts illustrate how socialist economics do not work. Your response to that is to defend Bush's to help huge corporations.

quote:

Originally posted by NashBama:

quote:

US economy already collapsed until Bush and Obama bailed out the banks.

As long as the Corporate Media keeps the people disinformed and going around in circles they continue to play with our money.

The US economy did not collapse. It would not have collapsed without the bailout. There were many banks and lenders who were fine. If the failed banks were allowed to naturally go out of business, the successful ones would have acquired their assets and carried on. That's how business works.

Instead, Bush left office after borrowing billions to prop up failing companies. That doesn't solve the problem, it simply covers it up and will create a bigger one in the future.

What I find funny is that the original posts illustrate how socialist economics do not work. Your response to that is to defend Bush's to help huge corporations.

Helluva post and spot on.

Had the banks failed they would have taken the US down economy with them and a good part of the world market which is why Bush bailed them out.

"Too Big To Fail."

The US economy is like you say just masking bigger problems and it will catch up one of these days.
'
Dozens of recessions and one huge crash and now another all affect peoples loves, at the this point we are still 9% Unemployment.

Also our debt in the trillions, I have lost count already can only be paid back with massive cuts by US government.

"Also our debt in the trillions, I have lost count already can only be paid back with massive cuts by US government."

Don't you mean masssive tax increases?

They will have to increase taxes it's just who do they increase them on. The average American people better get their "stuff" together because they got stuck big time.

There is no such thing as "too big to fail", that's a scare tactic to push the bailout.

Sometimes, failure is a good thing. It leads to rebuilding and correcting mistakes. With the bailout, nothing was rebuilt and mistakes were not corrected. It was the equivalent of putting chewing gum on a crack in the dam. It might hold for a bit, but it doesn't solve the problem.

The correct decision was to allow poorly managed banks to fail. Better run companies would be in a position to acquire those assets and they would replace the failed banks. It happens in business all the time. With the government meddling and blowing billions of our tax dollars, the only thing accomplished is a massively increased national debt and volatile companies are still around.

Just wait a few years, that dam will burst and we'll see just how dumb that bailout idea really was.

quote:

The correct decision was to allow poorly managed banks to fail. Better run companies would be in a position to acquire those assets and they would replace the failed banks. It happens in business all the time.

I generally agree with this, but something needs to be pointed out. This wasn't a situation where a small handfull of big banks screwed up, and their failure would have positioned smaller, better-run banks to take them over. This was a failure of the system. The credit markets, which are tied directly to the Federal Reserve (thus the government), broke down. Allowing failure, in this case, would have meant letting the banking system itself fail, not just a few banks. That would have been catastrophic, but probably better than what's yet to come.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


dolemitejb[quote]I generally agree with this, but something needs to be pointed out. This wasn't a situation where a small handfull of big banks screwed up, and their failure would have positioned smaller, better-run banks to take them over. This was a failure of the system. The credit markets, which are tied directly to the Federal Reserve (thus the government), broke down. Allowing failure, in this case, would have meant letting the banking system itself fail, not just a few banks. That would have been catastrophic, but probably better than what's yet to come.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What's to come will be worse because they have not "fixed" the system and still allow it to be basically unregulated. The governemnt should have Nationalized the banks when they failed, broke them up and allowed qualified people who want to run a bank to help the community and country run them instead of a bunch of greedy gamblers.

quote:

Originally posted by dolemitejb:

quote:

The correct decision was to allow poorly managed banks to fail. Better run companies would be in a position to acquire those assets and they would replace the failed banks. It happens in business all the time.

I generally agree with this, but something needs to be pointed out. This wasn't a situation where a small handfull of big banks screwed up, and their failure would have positioned smaller, better-run banks to take them over. This was a failure of the system. The credit markets, which are tied directly to the Federal Reserve (thus the government), broke down. Allowing failure, in this case, would have meant letting the banking system itself fail, not just a few banks. That would have been catastrophic, but probably better than what's yet to come.

Good point. I agree that the failure of the banks would have led to a bad situation, but I'm not sure how catastrophic it would be. No doubt it would have created a very difficult time financially, however the recovery that would have followed would have been longer lasting and stronger than simply throwing tax payer money at the problem. I also think that it serves as a warning about the problems created by the Federal Reserve, I'm not a big fan of that either.

What is certain is that nationalizing the banks would simply create the biggest government ever seen in America. That's the first step in creating an oppressive and cruel regime. Pogo, you have much more faith and trust in the government than I do.

Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System | | AlterNet

://www.alternet.org/story/145942/finance_superstars_talk_about_the_massive_fraud_in_our_economic_system



Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System

"Make Markets Be Markets" conference of financial reform all-stars offers an alternative to Washington's disastrous oversight of the economy.
March 8, 2010 |


Last Wednesday, I attended a conference initiated by the Roosevelt Institute on the financial mess, called Make Markets Be Markets. The conference's speakers included people with experience on Wall Street, the banking industry, government and academia; Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, Elizabeth Warren, and other luminaries who have offered an alternative and reformist narrative to our recent financial crisis. At two and half hours, it was relatively short, giving each speaker the opportunity to make their points and providing a sharp focus. One underlying theme of the event was fraud, the great elephant in the room, that neither the press or our government officials acknowledge, though it is a fundamental element to the financial crisis and its solutions.

Joe Stiglitz started the conference and stated how reducing transparency and hiding information was an essential element to the crisis. Stiglitz concluded, "Innovation was regulator and tax arbitrage." Wall Street and the banks deliberately added opacity and complexity to confuse clients and consumers. Elizabeth Warren pointed out, “complexity made a lot of profits," for example, she showed how the average credit card contract in 1980 was one page, today it is thirty.

This opacity and complexity helped make the financial industry predatory against their clients and customers. Not only did government regulatory agencies fail in stopping this confidence game of historical magnitude, but so did markets. NYU's Lawrence White pointed out the credit agencies such as Moody's and S&P, whose role is to provide independent analysis, essentially became co-conspirators as their business model changed from being paid by investors to being paid by the Wall Street issuers, making it against their interests to issue dour ratings on investments.

The only truly rigorous aspect of economics is accounting. It's no surprise that as the banks and Wall Street sought opacity and confusion through complexity, their greatest target would be the accounting system. There were various elements of "accounting innovation", but the largest, most notorious, and completely incredulous was the practice of "off balance sheet" accounting. One of the greatest elements of this off-book accounting was secularization—simply, the practice of taking existing debt, be it mortgages, student loans, or even credit card debt, bundling it together, then selling it as a completely different product. Financial analyst Josh Rosner, who called the Fannie and Freddie accounting scandal in 2001 and the housing peak in 2005 stated:

"Poorly developed and opaque securitization markets drove excess liquidity and irresponsible lending and borrowing...securitization markets too often operate in a "Wild West" environment where the rules are more often opaque than clear, standards vary, and useful and timely disclosures of the performance of loan level collateral is hard to come by. Asymmetry of information, between buyer and seller is the standard."

While Mr. Rosner pointed to the problems of securitization, Frank Partnoy, a finance and legal expert, went after the greatest scam, the derivatives markets. Mr Partnoy pointed out there is currently $600 trillion in derivative positions on a global economy of $60 trillion. Derivatives are another off-balance sheet innovation, in which speculators may take pure gambling positions, allowing them to take positions on matters in which they have no stake. It was in paying-off derivatives that a $185 billion of tax-payer money flowed through AIG. Today, then New York Fed head Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke all claim they didn't authorize this payout, the check seemingly magically sent.

To make his point even clearer, Mr. Partnoy put up Citi's official balance sheet, saying it was a "fictional balance sheet", representative of an industry in which financial innovation made the most basic accounting, the one thing which can offer real insight into a company's health, just another part of an elaborate scam.

Michael Greenberger of the University of Maryland made the important point that most of what we all call financial innovation is simply the resurrection of many old practices, outlawed in the 1930s, now dressed in new garb. He pointed specifically to the 1936 Commodities Exchange Act as representative of all New Deal financial reform. It insured transparency, open exchanges, anti-fraud, and anti-manipulation. He contrasted this to the 2000 Commodities Futures Modernization Act which gave modern derivatives and open field. Greenberger noted the Act was supported vigorously by then Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, and Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The law turned derivative markets into history's largest casino and its proponents knew exactly what was coming and preempted state gaming laws, thus derivative gambling could be completely unfettered.

Rob Johnson of the Roosevelt Institute was the last speaker and talked about the final arbitrage, which is "too big to fail." It is the arbitrage of the republic by looters who have created a system so rife with fraud that it brought down the American economy, throwing millions out of work, paying the very perpetrators trillions of dollars and counting. These very same people bought and sold our elected officials so often in the past several decades, that today DC might very well be deemed the one functional market. You actually get what you pay for.

The conference put out a very excellent report available here. If we're going to get our economy up and running again, the first thing we're going to have to do is end the fraud.

Again, that's from alternet. Zero credibility, zero respect, it's simply not a legitimate information source.

Find something objective and reliable I'll consider that.

quote:

What's to come will be worse because they have not "fixed" the system and still allow it to be basically unregulated. The governemnt should have Nationalized the banks when they failed, broke them up and allowed qualified people who want to run a bank to help the community and country run them instead of a bunch of greedy gamblers.

This, to me, illustrates your fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to American politics. These "greedy gamblers" and our elected representatives are one in the same. You seem to want to staff the entire fire department with pyromaniacs. It won't work.

I didn't say the politicians aren't corrupt, they allow the system.

Where you come off saying such an ignorant thing shows me you lack an answer dolemite

I continually say our system is corrupted by Corporate Money and they have the average people arguing over nonsense while they rob us blind and extend their "Empires" here and overseas.

The only one in this thread with "no credibility," Zero, is you Nash. Anytime you can't answer something or shown your wrong you turn to slander. It's what they taught you on TV and politics.

If I used the NY Times you say the same thing. Anything Liberal you claim has no credibility when it's more like you can't answer.
But anysite you find that backs up what you say you believe right away.

quote:

The only one in this thread with "no credibility," Zero, is you Nash. Anytime you can't answer something or shown your wrong you turn to slander. It's what they taught you on TV and politics.

If I used the NY Times you say the same thing. Anything Liberal you claim has no credibility when it's more like you can't answer.
But anysite you find that backs up what you say you believe right away.

Wrong.

I studied journalism as part of my degree. That included knowing the difference between objective and biased information. I do my best to provide unbiased information from objective sources.

The reason objective information is so important is because it provides both sides of an issue. It allows the reader to decide on their own. Saying alternet lacks credibility is not slander, it's accurate. If I turned in a paper and cited alternet as a source, my professor would dock serious points off. They have a very clear agenda, therefore their information can't be trusted any more than World Net Daily or any source biased to the far right.

quote:

Where you come off saying such an ignorant thing shows me you lack an answer dolemite

I continually say our system is corrupted by Corporate Money and they have the average people arguing over nonsense while they rob us blind and extend their "Empires" here and overseas.

I have plenty of answers. You just don't seem interested in understanding them.

You acknowledge that the system is corruptable by nature, but you refuse to blame the system. Instead, you focus your blame on the media, or the Tea Parties, or whatever else you personally dislike. Our problem isn't that THESE politicians have been corrupted. Our problem is that politicians are fundamentally corrupt. Limiting their power, or completely eliminating it, is the only workable solution. Your fantasy world where only the good guys get elected is exactly that, a fantasy world.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


NashBama


[quote]

Wrong.

I studied journalism as part of my degree. That included knowing the difference between objective and biased information. I do my best to provide unbiased information from objective sources.

The reason objective information is so important is because it provides both sides of an issue. It allows the reader to decide on their own. Saying alternet lacks credibility is not slander, it's accurate. If I turned in a paper and cited alternet as a source, my professor would dock serious points off. They have a very clear agenda, therefore their information can't be trusted any more than World Net Daily or any source biased to the far right.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Just because a paper or a site has a belief in something doesn't make their information wrong. Information is judeged on it's valiue, not on who is saying it.

There isn't an unbiased media source in the world, even the AP has shown bias.

Its just an excuse to hide behind when someone uses facts you don't like.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


dolemitejb

[quote]

I have plenty of answers. You just don't seem interested in understanding them.

You acknowledge that the system is corruptable by nature, but you refuse to blame the system. Instead, you focus your blame on the media, or the Tea Parties, or whatever else you personally dislike. Our problem isn't that THESE politicians have been corrupted. Our problem is that politicians are fundamentally corrupt. Limiting their power, or completely eliminating it, is the only workable solution. Your fantasy world where only the good guys get elected is exactly that, a fantasy world.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You have answers but as your post shows they are not based in reality. I never blamed the tea party for anything except over exaggerating it's importance.

I lived in the 60's and 70's when the people elected good people to office and postive pro people legislation was passed, both socially and environmentally. According to you American never had any good leaders or good actions and what, we need a new system?

We lived for years after the war in a great and high life style.

These politicians are corrupted and I believe in a more Socialists State then the current system.

quote:

Just because a paper or a site has a belief in something doesn't make their information wrong. Information is judeged on it's valiue, not on who is saying it.

There isn't an unbiased media source in the world, even the AP has shown bias.

Its just an excuse to hide behind when someone uses facts you don't like.

You're right, there is no purely objective source.

However, the AP for the most part attempts to be objective. Sometimes their stories show the personal bias of the particular reporter, but that's considered poor journalism.

If you limit yourself to information that openly admits liberal or conservative bias, then you are only hearing what you want to hear. Objective reporting means to tell both sides of the story, not just one particular view.

That's why sites like alternet have absolutely no credibility. It's nothing but spin and biased coverage of an issue. It's simply forcing a person's opinion on the reader. That's not a reliable source. If that's where you get your news, then you are criminally uninformed.

The founders of this country established it with certain checks and balances as well as a contract with the public, also known as the Constitution. Their vision for this country was for it's citizens to live free, enjoy their liberty, and that is accomplished by limiting the size and power of the federal government.

A Socialist State would not only completely unravel everything so many people have worked for, but it would create an oppressive, tyrannical government. You may think fondly of Pol Pot, Chavez, Castro, Kim Jong Ill, and the like, but the rest of the world sees them as they really are. They are murderous, heinous criminals who violate human rights on a daily basis. I don't see how that benifits anyone.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's why this country was originally established to have a government with limited authority. One can't be free and live in a socialist state.

quote:

You have answers but as your post shows they are not based in reality.

Well, certainly not based in YOUR reality.

quote:

I lived in the 60's and 70's when the people elected good people to office and postive pro people legislation was passed, both socially and environmentally. According to you American never had any good leaders or good actions and what, we need a new system?

What??? Did you type that with a straight face? Johnson? I guess Vietnam wasn't a big enough blunder for you. Nixon? Do I have explain how horrible he was? Ford? Carter? These are the "good people" elected to office in the 60's and 70's you fondly recall?

And to answer this question: "according to you American never had any good leaders?" No, not really, and definitely not in that last 40 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Pogo142:
________________________________________________________________________


dolemitejb[quote]I generally agree with this, but something needs to be pointed out. This wasn't a situation where a small handfull of big banks screwed up, and their failure would have positioned smaller, better-run banks to take them over. This was a failure of the system. The credit markets, which are tied directly to the Federal Reserve (thus the government), broke down. Allowing failure, in this case, would have meant letting the banking system itself fail, not just a few banks. That would have been catastrophic, but probably better than what's yet to come.


________________________________________________________________________

What's to come will be worse because they have not "fixed" the system and still allow it to be basically unregulated. The governemnt should have Nationalized the banks when they failed, broke them up and allowed qualified people who want to run a bank to help the community and country run them instead of a bunch of greedy gamblers.

What hasn't been fixed is the government urging the same type loans to those who brought down the system originally.

quote:

Originally posted by Pogo142:
I didn't say the politicians aren't corrupt, they allow the system.

Where you come off saying such an ignorant thing shows me you lack an answer dolemite

I continually say our system is corrupted by Corporate Money and they have the average people arguing over nonsense while they rob us blind and extend their "Empires" here and overseas.

The only one in this thread with "no credibility," Zero, is you Nash. Anytime you can't answer something or shown your wrong you turn to slander. It's what they taught you on TV and politics.

If I used the NY Times you say the same thing. Anything Liberal you claim has no credibility when it's more like you can't answer.
But anysite you find that backs up what you say you believe right away.

Old varmint,

You've brought up the problems with the US, but carefully ignored the original post. It's Venezuela, run into the ground by your socialist hero Hugolito Chavez. He's destroyed that nation without any help from bankers.

I pointed out the US already crashed and it's here where I am most worried as we have no jobs and 9% unemployment and our probklems are actually deeper then Venezuela who's market is tied to oil and as long as we keep buying it he will be fine.

quote:

I pointed out the US already crashed and it's here where I am most worried as we have no jobs and 9% unemployment and our probklems are actually deeper then Venezuela who's market is tied to oil and as long as we keep buying it he will be fine.

9% unemployment isn't great, but that doesn't mean we have no jobs.

The economy didn't crash. Here is how you can tell. Drive to your favorite restaurant on a Friday night around 6:30. If it's full and you have to wait for a table, then the economy is fine. If the restaurant is closed, it's competitors have also closed, and all you see in your neighborhood is vacant buildings, then the economy is in trouble.

Venezuela's economy has been destroyed by Chavez. That's what happens when socialism is implemented. Chavez will be fine, the average citizen of Venezuela will face hard times ahead.

quote:

Originally posted by Pogo142:
I pointed out the US already crashed and it's here where I am most worried as we have no jobs and 9% unemployment and our probklems are actually deeper then Venezuela who's market is tied to oil and as long as we keep buying it he will be fine.

Do you have any idea where Venezuela ranks in credit risk as a country? Look it up, they are rated as the highest risk with a better than 50% chance of going banktrupt in the near future.

quote:

Originally posted by NashBama:

quote:

I pointed out the US already crashed and it's here where I am most worried as we have no jobs and 9% unemployment and our probklems are actually deeper then Venezuela who's market is tied to oil and as long as we keep buying it he will be fine.

9% unemployment isn't great, but that doesn't mean we have no jobs.

The economy didn't crash. Here is how you can tell. Drive to your favorite restaurant on a Friday night around 6:30. If it's full and you have to wait for a table, then the economy is fine. If the restaurant is closed, it's competitors have also closed, and all you see in your neighborhood is vacant buildings, then the economy is in trouble.

Venezuela's economy has been destroyed by Chavez. That's what happens when socialism is implemented. Chavez will be fine, the average citizen of Venezuela will face hard times ahead.

Ate at George's three weeks ago, the place was full. Same for D&L Bistro in Huntsville, two weeks ago. Neither of those two places are cheap.

quote:

Originally posted by Pogo142:
I pointed out the US already crashed and it's here where I am most worried as we have no jobs and 9% unemployment and our probklems are actually deeper then Venezuela who's market is tied to oil and as long as we keep buying it he will be fine.

What part of the RISKIEST DEBT IN THE WORLD, don't you understand!

quote:

The economy didn't crash. Here is how you can tell. Drive to your favorite restaurant on a Friday night around 6:30. If it's full and you have to wait for a table, then the economy is fine.

quote:

Ate at George's three weeks ago, the place was full. Same for D&L Bistro in Huntsville, two weeks ago. Neither of those two places are cheap.

I'm sorry, I was going to leave this alone, but restaurant patronage is an extremely weak economic indicator. While I agree that the economy did not fully crash, as Pogo seems to believe, I don't hold that belief based on the number of cars in the Applebee's parking lot.

It's not a scientific way of measuring the strength of the economy, but it does show that the economy isn't in ruins as Pogo claims. Busy restaurants and shopping malls are signs of a functioning economy.

When people start cutting back on their budget due to job loss or simply fear about the future, entertainment is one of the first things to go. People eat at home or cheaper restaurants rather than spend the money at a nice place. They put off buying luxury items and make do with what they have. If the economy was as bad as Pogo believes it is, then higher restaurants should be shutting down due to lack of revenue. Since that's not the case, the opposite is actually true, then it shows the economy is doing fine. Maybe not perfect, but no where near the disaster that Pogo claims.

I know you already understand all of that. My point was to very simply illustrate his misconception using a real world example. Like I said, not scientific, but a clear way of showing Pogo he's wrong.

I work in a small private business that does both retail and wholesale and business is weak.

Our economy would have collapsed had not BUsh and Obama bailed out the banks. Had they collapsed it would be 1929 all over again.

When Bush was running up the debt the right wing told us no big deal.
We can't pay out debt now either, we don't have the producing power. All we have is massive cuts yet to come. Soon as China and Japan stop floating our economy that will be it.

quote:

Our economy would have collapsed had not BUsh and Obama bailed out the banks. Had they collapsed it would be 1929 all over again.

When Bush was running up the debt the right wing told us no big deal.
We can't pay out debt now either, we don't have the producing power. All we have is massive cuts yet to come. Soon as China and Japan stop floating our economy that will be it.

Amazingly, I agree with you. However, your statement here does virtually nothing to support statements you've made in other threads. You just outlined how governments screw everything up, which is what I've been telling you all along.

I believe if the right people are in government they won't screw up. I lived through the 60's and 70's when the people elected politicians who represented us, the average person.

Our system is corrupted by money from powerful corporations who run our lives.

People rely on the Corporate Media not realizing it is also corrupt and nothing but huge corporations who slant the news to promote their agenda.

We are in this mess because of the greed of Corporate America, from Wall Street to moving our jobs overseas.

quote:

Originally posted by Pogo142:
I believe if the right people are in government they won't screw up. I lived through the 60's and 70's when the people elected politicians who represented us, the average person.

Our system is corrupted by money from powerful corporations who run our lives.

People rely on the Corporate Media not realizing it is also corrupt and nothing but huge corporations who slant the news to promote their agenda.

We are in this mess because of the greed of Corporate America, from Wall Street to moving our jobs overseas.

I agree except you left out the greed of the millions in this country who take everything they can get and contribute nothing.

quote:

I believe if the right people are in government they won't screw up. I lived through the 60's and 70's when the people elected politicians who represented us, the average person.

Our system is corrupted by money from powerful corporations who run our lives.

People rely on the Corporate Media not realizing it is also corrupt and nothing but huge corporations who slant the news to promote their agenda.

We are in this mess because of the greed of Corporate America, from Wall Street to moving our jobs overseas.

And you lost me. Your nostalgic sentiment has replaced reality. Who were these great politicians of the 60's and 70's? Furthermore, your lack of understanding of basic economics is obvious when you blame everything on "the corporations" and "greed."

quote:

Originally posted by Pogo142:
I believe if the right people are in government they won't screw up. I lived through the 60's and 70's when the people elected politicians who represented us, the average person.

Our system is corrupted by money from powerful corporations who run our lives.

People rely on the Corporate Media not realizing it is also corrupt and nothing but huge corporations who slant the news to promote their agenda.

We are in this mess because of the greed of Corporate America, from Wall Street to moving our jobs overseas.

So, you admit, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, responsible for 50 percent of the $6.5 trillion in possible bad debt, at the behest of Congress, is share the responsibility!