How would YOU change the US

[dmancornell]

I have an idea! How about enforcing the law? And no, I don't mean against some undocumented ag worker or petty drug dealer. I mean against the bankers and mortgage originators, and especially, the bond developers who engaged in a decade of outright fraud, ending in the worst economic crisis since 1929.
Bush promoted the law-breaking, and Obama has completely enabled the perps. Which is why this election is even close, what with the so-called Republican Party offering up a sleazy corporate raider as their standard bearer. If the Democrats had enforced the law, complete with hearings, trials and real jail time for 'masters of the universe', a deal would have long-ago been reached with the banks to write down mortgages across the board to reflect true market value.
Just that mark-to-market of mortgages would put a trillion dollars per year back into economic circulation without a tax dollar spent. Of course the too-big-to-fail would then fail. Oh well.

LOL, calling for jail time for mortgage writers who were forced at government gunpoint to issue bad loans. That's just great. If you're going to whine about the law, maybe you should call for jail time for the counterfeiters at the Fed and the government parasites who wrote all those horrid laws in the first place.

Also LOL at "corporate raiders", implying there should be government protection for noncompetitive zombie firms.

 

[gehrheart]

Lets see..
there I was making a little money , then someone (gubmit) came along and said hey we have this big bag of money for you! Its all yours, all you have to do is invest it in very high risk loans.. You get to keep the profits!!
However if it fails that’s ok because we will give you another big bag of money to make up for it... so long as you keep investing in the high risk loans! And you will still get to keep the profit...
..So you are giving money to invest badly so if there are profits I get to keep them and you will back it up if it fails... I have no real risk and possible make a bunch more money.. Heck ya sign me up! said the "investor"

While I am not one to say there are not issues with Wall Street, the housing fall had a lot to do with big gubmit interfering with true capitalism.. I think I would have agreed to such a deal myself.
Government has no business interfering, let the economy run its course. ( I know I’m such an evil capitalist )

 

[dmancornell]

The easiest change that I can think of that would help put us as a country headed back on track, would be to tell every foreigner and foreign country or company that they can not own and part of our country.
That they may rent or lease a space, just like every other country in the world, but they can not own any part of us.

Ownership of property in the USA should be for the citizens alone and no others.

So much for foreign investment.

 

[Wood Worker]

So much for foreign investment.

How would not being physically able to own a piece of ground here hinder a foreign person from investing?
Foreign investment usually has to deal with stocks and bonds or other types of negotiable securities.

My thoughts referred to the fact that I can not ever own property in Europe or Mexico, I can only lease it.

 

[dmancornell]

How would not being physically able to own a piece of ground here hinder a foreign person from investing?
Foreign investment usually has to deal with stocks and bonds or other types of negotiable securities.

My thoughts referred to the fact that I can not ever own property in Europe or Mexico, I can only lease it.

You can own land in any EU country as far as I know, you simply can't get a mortgage. No idea about Mexico.

Most companies would be uneasy about setting up operations in a country where they do not own what they pay to establish. In the early days of US companies trying to set up shop in China, the fact that they can never own the land they pay for was a huge problem. What they ended up doing was setting up joint-ventures, essentially with a Chinese middle-man, which of course was a massive waste of money and vastly increased corruption.

The notion that foreigners are not entitled to land (which is just a form of private property) is unamerican.

 

[Wood Worker]

The notion that foreigners are not entitled to land (which is just a form of private property) is unamerican.

dmancornell,

You have your ideas and I have mine, your ideas and my ideas may never mesh, and there is nothing that says they have to.
Still All I did was share an Idea, what would I do, should I ever have the power to do so.
No where in the beginning of the thread was there any contingency stating that my ideas must pass your muster.

I made my suggestion partially because outside of the town where my father lives here in Oregon, is a paper mill.

This papermill was not always an international papermill, that is owned by some Chinese investors.
The mill was milked dry, shut down, and put up for sale to anyone who would promise not to ever use the papermill there for making paper.
Does not sound like foreign investment, sounds like forcible rape of the local economy..

With my idea that papermill would still be running.

So call my thoughts unAmerican, fine by me, you don't know me from a bag of chips.

 

[dmancornell]

dmancornell,

You have your ideas and I have mine, your ideas and my ideas may never mesh, and there is nothing that says they have to.
Still All I did was share an Idea, what would I do, should I ever have the power to do so.
No where in the beginning of the thread was there any contingency stating that my ideas must pass your muster.

I made my suggestion partially because outside of the town where my father lives here in Oregon, is a paper mill.

This papermill was not always an international papermill, that is owned by some Chinese investors.
The mill was milked dry, shut down, and put up for sale to anyone who would promise not to ever use the papermill there for making paper.
Does not sound like foreign investment, sounds like forcible rape of the local economy..

With my idea that papermill would still be running.

So call my thoughts unAmerican, fine by me, you don't know me from a bag of chips.

Well I didn't see any preface in the thread that forbade criticism, so sorry about that. In any case nobody forced the previous owners of the paper-mill to sell to foreign investors, I fail to see how a voluntary transaction constitutes as "rape". Of course businesses that get bought out are typically ones that fail to keep up with competition, so most likely that mill would have gone under either way, much like the US steel industry going the way of the dodo.

 

[Bam]

Term limits. End the career politician bull crap.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Here's what I would do the first day I had the crown

1) Cut off all foreign aid

2) Call back all US troops and put them in our ports and Southern border to catch invaders and contraband

3) Eliminate all alphabet agencies and create a new better foreign intelligence service (this means no BATF or federal gun laws, you can own anything unless you are a danger to the community)

4) Dump all previous debt to nations that have been sponging off us and making $$$$$$$$$$$$ which We the People pay for

5) Round up all illegals and green carders and ship 'em home

6) Create a real space program

7) No sincere person would be homeless, jobless.. there would be a national service as a safety net, real work for honest pay

8) No affirmative action, no weffare as we know it. Work or starve unless you are truly disabled in some way

9) Form state militias, armed with the real deal.. not subject to federal control

10) No federal taxes except excises

just a few off the top of my head.. BTW this means no Obongocare, no federal income tax and no IRS

 

[MikeE]

LOL, calling for jail time for mortgage writers who were forced at government gunpoint to issue bad loans. That's just great. If you're going to whine about the law, maybe you should call for jail time for the counterfeiters at the Fed and the government parasites who wrote all those horrid laws in the first place.

Also LOL at "corporate raiders", implying there should be government protection for noncompetitive zombie firms.

The bad loans were written for the profit that came from fees (why so many loans were made) and from 'securitizing' mortgages - selling them off to be bundled into 'securities' that got AAA rating from corrupted bond rating agencies. All private sector shenanigans. Government regulators were long ago captured by the private financial sector which grew in size relative to the economy, from 10% to almost 30%. It's were the big bucks were (are) and any government regulator who wants a better job had better play ball. Revolving door between Wall Street and Government means that Wall Street calls the shots, not the government. A quick look at relative salaries is all you need to know.
After the crash the story was spun that poor folks getting home loans were at fault - a completely self-serving line of b.s. that ignores all the data, and the fact that 1/3 of all US mortgages are currently underwater. That the story got the traction it did shows the moral decay of the so-called 'libertarian' view that prescribes personal responsibility to others but refuses to accept it personally.

 

[Sabertooth]

HAHAHAHAHAHA.... no.

YES, 2 years

 

[Sabertooth]

Take over Central and South America and Cuba. No more imagration problem. Stop all imports. Term limits, Realign the law with constatution (sp).

 

[dmancornell]

The bad loans were written for the profit that came from fees (why so many loans were made) and from 'securitizing' mortgages - selling them off to be bundled into 'securities' that got AAA rating from corrupted bond rating agencies. All private sector shenanigans. Government regulators were long ago captured by the private financial sector which grew in size relative to the economy, from 10% to almost 30%. It's were the big bucks were (are) and any government regulator who wants a better job had better play ball. Revolving door between Wall Street and Government means that Wall Street calls the shots, not the government. A quick look at relative salaries is all you need to know.
After the crash the story was spun that poor folks getting home loans were at fault - a completely self-serving line of b.s. that ignores all the data, and the fact that 1/3 of all US mortgages are currently underwater. That the story got the traction it did shows the moral decay of the so-called 'libertarian' view that prescribes personal responsibility to others but refuses to accept it personally.

So you admit there is a revolving door between wall street and the government, then you turn around and blame the private sector even though all the easy money that finances the so-called "private sector shenanigans" came from the government with the explicit directive to "boost the housing market", i.e. Clinton's and GWB's "American dream" pet project. Contradiction much?

Your claim that libertarians blame poor people for the crash is just pure ignorance. We blame the government and the Wall Street shills who go along with the state. You blame "the private sector" as a way to criticize capitalism, and gloss over the fact that the Wall Street "private sector" is so heavily influenced by the state to the point where the two are essentially indistinguishable.

So much for personal responsibility when you statists refuse to ever blame the government for anything. Like you lefties love to say, the government are people too.

 

[MikeE]

So you admit there is a revolving door between wall street and the government, then you turn around and blame the private sector even though all the easy money that finances the so-called "private sector shenanigans" came from the government with the explicit directive to "boost the housing market", i.e. Clinton's and GWB's "American dream" pet project. Contradiction much?

Your claim that libertarians claim it's the poor peoples' fault we're in this mess is just pure ignorance. We blame the government and the Wall Street shills who go along with the state. You blame "the private sector" as a way to criticize capitalism, and gloss over the fact that the Wall Street "private sector" is so heavily influenced by the state to the point where the two are essentially indistinguishable.

So much for personal responsibility when you statists refuse to ever blame the government for anything. Like you lefties love to say, the government are people too.

Wrong. I get the link between the State and the financial royalty. Where does one start and the other end? The answer is who benefits? The financial sector grabbed the lion's share of spoils in the last twenty years and turned the state into their rent-a-cops. The two are so intertwined I can see where the confusion arises. But remember, the move towards so-called 'deregulation' is what created capitalism without tears, i.e. the ability to leverage to the max, use debt as a weapon, and depend on your toadies inside the state for a bail out when the wheels come off.

 

[dmancornell]

Wrong. I get the link between the State and the financial royalty. Where does one start and the other end? The answer is who benefits? The financial sector grabbed the lion's share of spoils in the last twenty years and turned the state into their rent-a-cops. The two are so intertwined I can see where the confusion arises. But remember, the move towards so-called 'deregulation' is what created capitalism without tears, i.e. the ability to leverage to the max, use debt as a weapon, and depend on your toadies inside the state for a bail out when the wheels come off.

Deregulation doesn't create over-leverage. Lack of risk does. The government created a scenario where favored firms are practically guaranteed a bailout if things went south.

Of course there was never any real deregulation to begin with, considering how government intervention in markets actually increased. Deregulation is nothing more than government doublespeak for increased cooperation between the central bank and pliant Wall Street firms.

And who benefits? Considering how the massive growth of federal government power in the last three decades was financed solely through the fed, the answer is obvious. In the age of fiat currency when money can be created from thin air, money is largely irrelevant to the state, power and control is the real prize. The bankers made out with chump change compared to the power the government gained, and the trillions of dollars that will be stolen from regular people as a result.

 

[MikeE]

Agreed, almost ( and it's probably a big 'almost').

 

[Burt Gummer]

Current Americans = 30s Germans minus 50 IQ points. We get a pending boot across the throat while 'we' going marauding across the globe killing millions for fake reasons. Possibly the most corrupt government ever along with the most deluded populace ever. Not a great combo.

 

[kenr74]

No more free rides. No more vilifying the rich because they make more. I don't know many rich people but the ones I know worked for it.

Cut military spending and bring them all home. Put them on the borders. Enough being the world policeman.

Cut entitlements that have NOT been earned. People living off the government shouldn't be eating better than I am. Feed them a healthy diet only. You don't go to Safeway, you go to a warehouse and pick up your box of food. Give them a reason to get a job.

Leave entitlements that HAVE been earned. If you paid into SS all your life you earned that benefit.

I have no problem with raising taxes IF it is done fairly. Figure out what the minimum salary is to live from. If you make more than that you pay X% as a tax just like everybody else. No more brackets, no more jealousy.

 

[Father of four]

How should we start to change the USA.

Start by voting your conscience! It is not a wasted opinion or a wasted vote!

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams