1986XJIan said:
Whoa...hold up here chief. Before you start making comments like we need to study history better allow me to clue you in on a few things.
First the US being in a depression is not what lead to Hitler gaining power in Germany. The Nazi party took control because Germany was in such bad shape after WWI. They were suffering from their own depression. Their government was in shambles.
Amazing! So the US economic collapse in 1929 had nothing to do with the world wide depression that followed. Our inability to continue helping Germany after 1929 had nothing to with the collapse of the German government that led to the rise of Hitler to power. So with the German governemt in shambles, broke, unable to function, why didn't free market economics work there, but instead led to the rise of the Third Reich?
"
In the fall of 1929 a shock wave began in the city of New York that was destined to help bring Hitler to power in far-off Germany. The Wall Street stock market crashed. The trading of stocks came to an abrupt halt when the value of the stocks suddenly fell to practically nothing. Millionaires became paupers overnight. The middle class saw its savings and investments disappear. People who had invested in stocks and bonds suddenly had nothing left. Banks failed and companies went bankrupt; people who had placed their money in savings accounts and checking accounts found that they could not draw their money out because the banks had been shut down. Factories and stores closed. Jobs were scarce.
Germany's economy after World War I had been built on foreign loans, especially loans from the United States, and on world trade, which was also based on a system of loans and notes of credit. As a result, the fate of Germany (and of other countries as well) was tied up with that of the United States. When world trade and commerce collapsed, the German economy collapsed with it. Now millions of Germans were out of work. The middle class saw its savings and investments disappear. To pay their debts, people were forced to sell houses and furnishings. The Depression was the final blow, coming on top of Germany’s military defeat and the postwar years of inflation and unemployment. In Germany more than in any other country a feeling of utter hopelessness prevailed.
Germany's major political parties were also stunned and helpless. Only two parties could turn to the people of Germany to say, “We told you so.” One of these was the Communist party, which for years had said that the defeat of capitalism was near. The other was Hitler's party, the Nazis."
http://www.rossel.net/Holocaust01.htm
"After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the US called in its loans to Germany, and the German economy collapsed. The Number of unemployed grew; people starved on the streets. In the crisis, people wanted someone to blame, and looked to extreme solutions – Hitler offered them both, and Nazi success in the elections grew.
Germans turned to Nazism because they were desperate. The number of Nazi seats in the Reichstag rose from 12 in 1928 to 230 in July 1932."
Number of Unemployed in Germany
1928 2 million
1929 2.5 million
1930 3 million
1931 5 million
1932 6 million
http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar7.htm
1986XJIan said:
Secondly, allow me to correct your comments about why the "government controls were instituted in the 1930's." In 1933 the United States was bankrupt. Our government used the citizens as collateral to pay off debts (this is why we have birth certificates now).
Amazing, birth certificates were created to pay off the US Debt! Give me break.
"The
Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and included banking reforms, some of which were designed to control
speculation.[
citation needed] Some provisions such as
Regulation Q that allowed the Federal Reserve to regulate interest rates in savings accounts were repealed by the
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Other provisions which prohibit a
bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed in 1999 by the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
[1]"
1986XJIan said:
I also feel compelled that President Clinton was the one who signed the law repealling the Glass-Steagall Act. This was not done the Republican party as you allude to.
"The
Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and included banking reforms, some of which were designed to control
speculation.[
citation needed] Some provisions such as
Regulation Q that allowed the Federal Reserve to regulate interest rates in savings accounts were repealed by the
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Other provisions which prohibit a
bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed in 1999 by the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
[1]"
Note the name Gramm on the second bill that repealed the GS act. The same Texas Republican that is now McCain's Economic adviser, I do not see Bill Clintons name on that bill. You said the Republican's had nothing to do with repealing it. Wrong again. But I will yild points to you on Bill Clinton signing the bill, bad Bill!
On
November 12,
1999, President
Bill Clinton signed into law the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One of the effects of the repeal was to allow commercial and investment banks to consolidate. Several economists and analysts have criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the
2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis.
[6] [7]
"Losses at financial firms from the mortgage collapse may eventually triple to $600 billion as defaults on home loans grow, says Zurich-based UBS AG. One reason banks are losing money is the repeal nine years ago of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act,
which separated commercial and investment banking after excessive risk- taking contributed to the Great Depression, Eveillard said. The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities. Citigroup, which has fallen 36 percent since reporting in January the biggest quarterly loss in its 196-year history, may have writedowns of $15 billion this quarter, according to New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. That would add to the $22 billion that Citigroup already lost because of the housing slump. Citigroup played a major part in the repeal. Then called Citicorp, the company merged with Travelers Insurance company the year before utilizing loopholes in Glass-Steagall the allowed for temporary exemptions. With lobbying led by Roger Levy, the "finance, insurance and real estate industries together are regularly the largest campaign contributors and biggest spenders on lobbying of all business sectors [in 1999]. They laid out more than $200 million for lobbying in 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics..." These industries succeeded in their two decades long effort to repeal the act. Also, "The newly formed Citigroup announced only days after the deal that it had hired recently departed Treasurey Secretary Robert Rubin as a member of its three-person office of the chairman."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act
1986XJIan said:
I am amazed by your allegations that any of our representatives are "bought and sold by big business before they ever get close to being elected." I would like to examine your facts that substantiate these statements. Mere naked allegations have no place in a rational discussion.
I think I just nailed that one above too!
"With lobbying led by Roger Levy, the "finance, insurance and real estate industries together are regularly the largest campaign contributors and biggest spenders on lobbying of all business sectors [in 1999]. They laid out more than $200 million for lobbying in 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics..." These industries succeeded in their two decades long effort to repeal the act. Also, "The newly formed Citigroup announced only days after the deal that it had hired recently departed Treasurey Secretary Robert Rubin as a member of its three-person office of the chairman."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act
1986XJIan said:
And for the record, the United States government is a federal democratic republic. The government is set up so that the citizens elect who we believe will best represent our local interests.
The US president is not elected by the people. He is elected by the electoral college. We do not vote directly on the creation of new laws, they are created for us by representatives.
1986XJIan said:
I totally disagree with you assumption that living without our precious air conditioning will cause you (or anyone else for that matter) to die.
"
At least 35,000 people died as a result of the record heatwave that scorched Europe in August 2003, says an environmental think tank.
The Earth Policy Institute (EPI), based in Washington DC, warns that such deaths are likely to increase, as "even more extreme weather events lie ahead".
The EPI calculated the huge death toll from the eight western European countries with data available. "Since reports are not yet available for all European countries, the total heat death toll for the continent is likely to be substantially larger," it says in a statement.
France suffered the worst losses, with 14,802 people dying from causes attributable to the blistering heat. This is "more than 19 times the death toll from the SARS epidemic worldwide", notes the EPI.
Silent killer
August 2003 was the hottest August on record in the northern hemisphere. But projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict more erratic weather, the EPI notes. By the end of this century, the average world temperature is projected to climb by 1.4 to 5.8°C.
"Though heat waves rarely are given adequate attention, they claim more lives each year than floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined," warns the EPI. "Heat waves are a silent killer, mostly affecting the elderly, the very young, or the chronically ill."
The searing August heat claimed about 7000 lives in Germany, nearly 4200 lives in both Spain and Italy. Over 2000 people died in the UK, with the country recording is first ever temperature over 100° Fahrenheit on 10th August."
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn4259
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-09-25-france-heat_x.htm
1986XJIan said:
Perhaps actually studying the history rather than merely spewing the rhetoric that others have presented in order to gain a political advantage would allow you to see that giving too much control to the government has, repeatedly in the past, horrible consequences for the people of that country. You brought up Hitler as an example, well, the kinds of powers that you are suggesting being granted to the government are the very powers that brought the Nazi party in control of Germany. Is this what you are asking for? Do you truly want a Gestopo style police force? Do you truly want to be told where you can go and when you can go there? It is a slippery slope that you are asking us to embark on my friend. Then end is not some place I choose to find myself. There are far too many solutions available to us to justify handing any part of lives over the government.
I am suggestion that GW Bush has already taken too much executive power and nearly destroyed the safeguards we once had in the US Constitution. The Patriot Act is the most dangerous thing to happen to this country since GWB. I have a close friend, who was once a US Ranger in Vietnam, and after he read the Patriot Act cover to cover he told me it was the scarriest thing he had ever read. He has been the VP of Finance of 2 publicly traded companies.
What I want is adequite, fair play regulation of business and how it treats individual consumers. And since you mentioned it, the Republicans have already created their own gestopo force that is above the law, it is the US DEA! Hell one of them is in jail now for drug smuggling.
hone: answer it, it's
