Thread: What Freedoms Did We Have Before Obama...

Originally Posted by MeadHallPirate

ahoy Rakkasan,

matey, yer a veteran 'o the decks, so i don't mean to come off as disrespectful....but do ye honestly believe that conservatives in congress and the white house aren't enthusiastic and energetic panderers?

what on earth do ye call the current conservative crusade to root out Muslim agents from the upper echelons 'o government?

- MeadHallPirate

Sanity?

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Every dollar the government prints takes away freedoms. Every dollar is worth less, with lower value dollars, you can't take that vacation you took last year, you can't pay cash for that new refrigerator, you can't send your kids to private school this year. Inflation is the biggest robber of your freedoms and this administration has had to borrow record amounts of money that no one will lend us any more so it had to be printed. Huge amounts of money printed will result in huge amounts of inflation soon.

And every CDS that is created adds to freedom and takes away another non-existent several million from the tax payers.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

And every CDS that is created adds to freedom and takes away another non-existent several million from the tax payers.

Talk to your politicians about those.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Every dollar the government prints takes away freedoms. ......

So the dollars they tax for national defence takes away your freedom?

I always thought that the US had to spend over half the global arms budget to preserve those freedoms, imagine my surprise whey UI read in your post that this massive military takes away your freedoms.

Or do you just want to be a free loader on the backs on honest tax payers who value the sacrifices that the military makes to protect your freedoms?

Originally Posted by RDK

So the dollars they tax for national defence takes away your freedom?

I always thought that the US had to spend over half the global arms budget to preserve those freedoms, imagine my surprise whey UI read in your post that this massive military takes away your freedoms.

Or do you just want to be a free loader on the backs on honest tax payers who value the sacrifices that the military makes to protect your freedoms?

Last I knew, the military didn't print money.

If you want to get real, military expenditures are one of the few things that are actually good for the economy. We are actually paying to manufacture something. Added value. Military sales also help to balance our trade deficit. Most of what government does or pays for is service related, not manufacturing related. Service jobs are there only to service the economy, they don't add anything to economic growth.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Talk to your politicians about those.

I like the fact that CDSs are the most overt irresponsible excesses of the Free Market.
Then, when emotionally blind Conservative blame Sub-Primes for the crash, I can share a laugh with my Independent friends.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Last I knew, the military didn't print money.

If you want to get real, military expenditures are one of the few things that are actually good for the economy. We are actually paying to manufacture something. Added value. Military sales also help to balance our trade deficit. Most of what government does or pays for is service related, not manufacturing related. Service jobs are there only to service the economy, they don't add anything to economic growth.

The military is, of necessity, a nation within a nation that purchases everything from pencils, soap and sponges to Battleships and Jet Fighters.
The military is a virtual printer of money as our nation's freedom is dependent upon it.
The fact that it is a vessel for corruption does not take away from it's essential part of our nation.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

I like the fact that CDSs are the most overt irresponsible excesses of the Free Market.
Then, when emotionally blind Conservative blame Sub-Primes for the crash, I can share a laugh with my Independent friends.

Do you really think that MBE's would have been invented if the bank were allowed to make and hold good loans? They wanted to unload the bad loans and once they found a way to do it, they were glad to make more of them. It wasn't just sub primes either. They knew that the sticks and bricks weren't worth what people were willing to pay for them even in good loans but as long as they had an out, they made the loans.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Do you really think that MBE's would have been invented if the bank were allowed to make and hold good loans? They wanted to unload the bad loans and once they found a way to do it, they were glad to make more of them. It wasn't just sub primes either. They knew that the sticks and bricks weren't worth what people were willing to pay for them even in good loans but as long as they had an out, they made the loans.

That's not the issue.
being able to buy $100,000,000.00 of insurance on a $50,000,000.00 mortgage bundle is overtly irresponsible.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

That's not the issue.
being able to buy $100,000,000.00 of insurance on a $50,000,000.00 mortgage bundle is overtly irresponsible.

I understand that. The thing is, these instruments would never have been invented if banks were able to loan money to who they believed were good risks and simply keep the loans on their own books. Government started interfering with the creation of Fannie and Freddie and that allowed banks to make loans they knew were questionable because they were insured by the government or were sold to third parties. Had the banks not been allowed to offload their liability, they would not have made these bad loans and they would not have had to come up with a way to shield themselves from losses they knew were coming.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

I understand that. The thing is, these instruments would never have been invented if banks were able to loan money to who they believed were good risks and simply keep the loans on their own books. Government started interfering with the creation of Fannie and Freddie and that allowed banks to make loans they knew were questionable because they were insured by the government or were sold to third parties. Had the banks not been allowed to offload their liability, they would not have made these bad loans and they would not have had to come up with a way to shield themselves from losses they knew were coming.

The origins of Fannie and Freddie go back to the mid 60 as a Wall Street/Capitol Hill scheme to raise interest rates on risky loans because Life Insurance polices couldn't cover the actuarial possibility of people passing away before the investment paid off.
You cannot simply look at the instruments called Fannie and Freddie, you have to research why they and how they came into being.

Originally Posted by dblack

If ACA is not repealed, people will, eventually, be locked up over the mandate. It's the same road we went down with mandatory auto insurance, and despite promises to the contrary, people are locked up for not giving their pound of flesh to the insurance companies.

I have NEVER heard of someone being locked up for not having car insurance. Can you give me a link or is this just hyperbole?

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

Last I knew, the military didn't print money.

If you want to get real, military expenditures are one of the few things that are actually good for the economy. We are actually paying to manufacture something. Added value. ......

So if taxing the people to pay for military expenditures is good for the economy because the money is spent on actually building things, then why is money not spent on building things like roads, bridges and other infrastructure?

Remember that this sub-thread started with the statement that all taxes were infringements on freedom.

BTW where did the comment about the military printing money come from?