Should Obama be president?

Off-Topic Off Topic
#141

Please tell me that it’s a typo with a misplaced extra zero that says that $149 down gets you into a $700,000 house. :frowning: That works out at about one week’s interest around 1%, but with no or such negligible payments of principal that the buyer can never own it. Which assumes that 1% was the going rate.

Then again, it’s probably not a typo. I know someone who travelled in America well after the sub-prime crash but who saw current ads still offering the same sort of impossible deals.

What I don’t understand is why people who lost (possibly overpriced) houses don’t buy them now when they’re dirt cheap.

I can’t recall exact figures, but I saw a TV program here maybe 8 to 12 months ago where an Australian interviewer spoke with a US real estate agent in a depressed area (can’t recall where) who had numerous houses for sale around $1,500 to $2,000 which he said would probably end up selling for half or less than half of that price. These houses had been bought for - I can’t recall but I think it might have been - around $50,000 with sub-prime finance.

The area was going to seed but if everyone who had bailed out bought now they’d be able to bring it back.

I’m assuming that what I’ve heard is correct, which is that in America if you default on a mortgage loan you can just walk away with no further liability as the loan is attached to the real estate. Here, you carry the loan wherever you go if it exceeds the mortgagee’s sale proceeds on the house.

I’ve known a lot of people who became politicians, and lot who didn’t but who were asked (including me), and I’d say that those who became politicians through a party youth machine are invariably dishonest, manipulative, worthless shits and those who come in older aren’t much better, but that those who came through community and non-party sources mightn’t have started out that way but usually end up that way, because politics is a shit game and you have to be a shit to play it properly.

And if they don’t end up that way they have no influence, but at least they retain their integrity. I can think of only two politicians out of the hundreds I’ve seen federally here who fit that bill, and none of the many more hundreds in my or any other state, largely because state politics is more able to conceal corruption and relies more on corruption than federal politics.

#142

Heya, Rising Sun!

Wasn’t a typo… $149 down for a $700000 house. I used to shake my head in disgust seeing these signs all over, now I kinda wish I had grabbed one as a memento of the “Great Depression of 2008 - ?”!

I live in Westchester, one of the many suburbs of Los Angeles. Fairly middle class, mostly renters, fairly common racial mix: whites, hispanics, blacks, a few asians. Lots of big, expensive houses to the west and north of me. My neighborhood is pretty much all duplexes (single house with two addresses) built during World War II, pretty much owned and rented out by the same realty company. Due east from me is Inglewood, an indepedant city surrounded by L.A., that is primarily lower class, primarily minorities. The type of people that these “American Dream” programs targeted.

True, there is a “housing crises” supposedly going on, but things are a bit different here in the “Sunshine State”. Home prices, withen a 8 mile radius of me, run from highs of $800000 / $2000000 (Manhattan Beach), to $400000 / $800000 (Hawthorne), to $280000 / $400000 (Inglewood). So the cheapest you can find a house for is still almost $300k! And thats a run down, in need of repair house in what most people would consider a “bad” area (crime, rundown, etc). High unemployment / lack of jobs has not caused a corresponding drop in property prices. Evidently, people want to live in California, despite high tax burdens, high cost of living, crime, traffic, etc. Couple that with the fact the banks (who actually “own” most of the property) don’t want to let stuff go for less than what they got it for. Also, any losses they “might” suffer, the federal gov’t is only to willing to fix, using taxpayer money.

As for politicians… thats what has GOT to change. Too many get into it as an alternative to Hollywood: big egos, connections made, and graft and monetary corruption like nothing else. Its become the career choice of shitbags, men that will take bribes and kickbacks from lobbyists / contractors, diddle male prostitutes and female aides while standing next to their wives and tearfully talking about morality. The man of integrity and honesty going bad should be rarity, not shitbags and scums occasionly doing the right thing.

Politics in the US has devolved into two political parties: thew Democratic party, which is center with a small minority of ultra radical leftists (communists, social experimentors, black nationists, brown power, etc); and the Republican party (GOP: Grand Old Party), which is made up of center with a very small minority of ultra rightists (white racists, bible thumpers, etc). The parties fundamentally say the same things, propose the same plans, etc. Unfortunately, both tend to allow themselves to be eagerly co-opted by the extremist factions of their parties. Last administration was a little too rightwinger rich, now the rebound brings us a ultra-radically left group.

Not a happy situation for 60% of the country.

Russ
Proud son of Rose and Wes

#143

You can call him a lot of things, but an “empty suit” would pretty much put you on your own island as he’s a self-made lawyer that came up from the middle class and went on to excel at Harvard without the benefit of being a “legacy”…

McCain may be a real American Hero but he is no conservative. I don’t mean bible thumping, gay-bashing Southern conservatism like the media portrays, and unfortunately was promoted by our last administration, but genuine small government, personal responsibility sort of thinking.

And who is a real conservative? And its not the medias fault that the Republican party panders to the evangelical vote…

BHO is turning out to be a surprisingly devout radical thinker. The caliber of people he surrounds himself with and takes council from would really alarm people if there was any honest media reporting on it. There is a sworn Communist (can we say the RED MENACE); a guy that believes in eugenics; another that advocates introduction of contraceptive chemicals into drinking water supplies; and another that thinks children under the age of two, older, infirm people, and the mentally challenged should be available for “end of life preparedness” because they don’t “participate in community”. Didn’t the combined militaries of freedom loving countries conquer a group that thought like this 65 years ago?

Russ
Proud son of Rose and Wes

Do you have any evidence at all for the above rubbish?

#144

I agree with Nick.It’s rubbish! I read it twice and I don’t agree to what was said. If Nick agrees with me, then it must be Rubbish-Simple as that, Straight up!

#145

I like what Lewis Black had to say about it; It’s not so much the choice between good and evil as it is two warm bowls of shit. the only choice is, which one smells better.

Personally, I think this poll is pointless, as we are stuck with him until the next election, but if I had to pick? I’d pick Bobby Jindall.

#146

Do you mean this chap?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWYcyN0lFfA&feature=related

I prefer this, it has more class!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-pzlZPRvx8

#147

You know what? When they asked him to run in the last election for President, he turned them down because he said there was more work to be done for the people of Louisiana. You ask anyone in Louisiana, and the overwhelming majority will tell you Bobby Jindall is the best thing to ever happen to the state. Where Blanco, Brown and Bush failed, he has persevered.

#148

I don’t need to ask anyone - I believe you!

#149

I was recently chatting with an old, Army chum of mine who has taken U.S. citizenship and lives in Brick N.J. He suggested that it would be some time before there would be another African-American President with the whole package (perhaps it would be interesting to examine that package?), as Obama has raised the hurdle so high.

I would liken his suggestion to finding another earth-like planet in another solar system. If I were a U.S. citizen, I think that I would be concerned as to where another President, of any ethnic identity, who possesses the whole package, can be found.

Of course, as an outside observer, the priorities of internal U.S. social politics hold little interest to me and I am looking at the situation from a foreign policy standpoint and the influence the U.S. has on world affairs, the world economy in particular, and how the U.S. President presents himself on the world stage (is that last piece Shakespearean? :)).

#150

the warnings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

the denial and cover up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahtuNt3AKCg

Maxine Waters - a slip of the lip???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU6GSl2yu_o&NR=1

should he be prez??? well lets see what his voters thought

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8

and now the healthcare bill. or deathcare as protesters call it, who now flame dems at townhall meetings nationwide - just a sample

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS_I7ZUHMg

backlash??? Obama calls them thugs. says its organized. Pelosi calls them Nazi’s. Reid un American. hmmm. right. just for speaking their minds ??? this country is spinning out of control.

#151

Dear Jesus, make it stop…

#152

“‘Rule 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.’”

“Rules for Radicals”, Saul Alinsky, 1971

#153

And your point is? Making shit up and throwing it on the internet somehow contributes to democracy?

#154

BRILLIANT!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Nick, I have to ask, why do you have a picture of a couple of Tommies, having a pint, as your signature?

#155

Tommies?! They are Canucks actually, enjoying presumably the spoils of war (Dutch beer) after hard fighting around the Scheldt Estuary in 1944.

I don’t know exactly why, but I love the picture and I think it says so much about War…

#156

Isn’t that the essence of a supposedly democratic electoral and parliamentary / congressional system?

If everyone was confined to facts and logical argument, where would that leave a supposedly democratic political system?

For a start, it would be discriminatory by excluding morons, who have as much right as anyone else to vote, particularly for candidates who are morons espousing moronic policies.

#157

R.S. you have pegged the U.S. system. It all comes down to marketing these days,whether it be fast food, adult beverages, transportation, on,and on, its all about getting the public to commit to whatever is being sold. If slick promotions dont work, then fear is usually the fallback,and all too successful position.

#158

It keeps coming down to Schultz’s sig!

“The fundamental problem of Democracy is that the majority of voters are idiots fueled by uninformed rage - and the Politicians do everything to cater to them.”

This pretty much applies to a town hall meeting going on anywhere today. We should also contribute to that the paid, bullshitting lackeys of the insurance industry pretending to be “citizens”…

#159

:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

I feel incredibly smart right now. :lol:

#160

Well you are Canadian!..It does go without saying!
We Salute you Smarty Pants Schuultz:)