Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 09/18/08 5:16 pm:
The end of a bull market is the bursting of a real estate bubble---which we have just gone through from the long running bull market which is now over.

Our financial system is shaky and failing...today we had the humiliation of having China and Arab money prop up our banks.

There is little chance that America can get out of a natural bear stock market in a short period of time....this is serious and we are taking down other economies like Russia.

What will the future bring????

Clarification/Follow-up by paraclete on 09/18/08 10:16 pm:
MS
it is good you have made the connect between failure to act on emissions and the financial crisis. It is doubtful any american administration could have the guts to begin a process which would have profound internal impacts whilst the towers of their financial system are falling around them.

Yes they are dragging the rest of the world into a black hole and I even hear ridiculous platitudes like the end of capitalism. wishfull thinking, but it is there. What good is a free enterprise system if it must be bailed out of its mistakes? Why should the speculators be allowed to rule financial markets?

Don't worry about China and the arabs bailing you out after all the money they used is money they extracted from you, the good part is they can't afford to have you fail, because is you do they go with you.

Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 09/18/08 11:53 pm:
China and the Arabs can't afford to let the American system fail, that's for sure. Have you heard of Donald Trump, the American entrepreneur with the unusual hair? He got into a world of trouble fifteen or so years ago, and he went to the banks that held the paper on his investments and they had to lend him more money to get him on his feet with his projects so they could get all their money back.

The Republicans have controlled the government since 1980 and we have see the culmination of their economic plans in the mortgage crisis and the failure of someof the great banks we see this week. Reagan ended regulation of the banking system(I worked for a large Savings and Loan when this happened), and interest in emissions and the imported gas problem was ignored(as well as other problems on the horizon). Bush One complained of VooDoo Economics, and the Republican Congress controlled Clinton...then the 8 years of Bush and his cronies...here we are. On the brink of a long economic downturn....

Clarification/Follow-up by labman on 09/19/08 4:29 pm:
If you look at the numbers, the economy is in far better shape now than in 1980 and 2000. Anybody remember stagflation and the tech wreck?

Yes, our financial problems are due to a lack of regulation. If Freddie and Fannie were subject to the same rules as the private sector, The current problems would never have happened. As with most problems, the government created it.

Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 09/20/08 4:20 pm:
Lab,

"Freddie" and "Fannie" were **PRIVATE CORPORATIONS**, they will have to be taken over by the government due to malfeasance.

You are too ignorant to post here or anyplace but a Fundamental Christian Board. IN addition, you are very grandiose in your ignorance.

Republicans and neo-Cons and Wall Street created this crisis which has been in the making since 1980 when Reagan started deregulating the banking system.

Your opinions are worth nothing. They are based on lies and ignorance.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 09/21/08 10:45 am:
The net results of the week :
the Dow was down about 34 points. For the month it is up 40 pts
For the past 5 years to Dow is up 18 %
In the past 10 years to Dow is up 44%.
This past week was not as bad as either the 1987 crash or the tech stock bubble.
I'd call it closer to the S&L collapse and the solution proposed simular the Resolution Trust Corp.;which actually turned a small profit for the government when everything panned out.Simularily it could be that the assets the government has taken on will have a higher value when divested .

Fannie and Freddie were not ;nor were they ever "private corps".They are US publicly traded government sponsored enterprise (GSE). They were set up by the government ;their operations were supposed to be regulated closely ;Presidents appointed their officers .

Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 09/21/08 4:42 pm:
It's about the credit markets....and how the collapse of these markets will bring down our economy. Including the stock market unless *socializing* the corporate debt can break the logjam in our credit markets.

I mispoke, Fanny and Freddie are part private corporation and part government. Unregulated madness.

Free enterprise for the average citizen, socialism for the rich. Except the rich can destroy our economic system by their greed...bring back regulation for the realities of the 21st century.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 09/21/08 10:28 pm:
I'm with you that regulations need to be updated. The question is ;do we want Chris Dodd ,Barney Frank ,and Charles Rangel creating the regulations when we know ho crooked they are ?

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 09/21/08 10:38 pm:
and how has summers been recently in Chi-town ?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-tom-skilling-explainer-13aug13,0,918946.story

"There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930."

I recall reading that this was the coldest winter on record in Chi-town since they've kept records.


Go Cubbies !

Clarification/Follow-up by paraclete on 09/22/08 10:18 pm:
Tom
we would all like to think we are wrong about climate change, but playing ostrich with local statistics won't make the problem go away. It has been a cold year here too but the underlying 8 year drought remains and it's business as usual. Nothing has changed just more talk.
What do we know
1. there has been great reduction in forests particularly tropical rain forest releasing carbon back to the atmosphere and reducing the take up.
2. Ice is melting both at the poles and in glaciers.
3. The concentration of carbon dioxide along with methane is rising and these gases have a particular characteristic of trapping heat.
4. destructive storms are more frequent
5. the possibility of shutting down the great conveyor which circulates heat around the planet and particularly the north atlantic is now closer than at any time in recorded history.
6.the level of carbon pollution continues to grow rapidly and unabated
all of these are interrelated

Clarification/Follow-up by labman on 09/23/08 12:00 pm:
''Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 09/20/08 11:20 am:
Lab,

"Freddie" and "Fannie" were **PRIVATE CORPORATIONS**, they will have to be taken over by the government due to malfeasance.

You are too ignorant to post here or anyplace but a Fundamental Christian Board. IN addition, you are very grandiose in your ignorance.

Republicans and neo-Cons and Wall Street created this crisis which has been in the making since 1980 when Reagan started deregulating the banking system.

Your opinions are worth nothing. They are based on lies and ignorance. ''

I do not feel there is any place for such personal attacks here or anywhere else. I find it pathetic Mary Susan continually falls back on personal attacks when lacking facts to back her stand. I think the uneven enforcement of the rules here is the larges cause of the decline inactivity here. I don't need Answerway.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 09/23/08 12:32 pm:
clete , Desertification began long before the industrial revolution. The Sahara began apx 5500 BC .But you are correct that the expansion of desert land in Australia is a man-made event. Land degradation in Australia is a problem of overgrazing of range lands. Erosion and salinization of irrigated and nonirrigated land are serious locally, primarily in small areas across the southern part of the continent, and their economic impact probably exceeds that due to overgrazing.
http://www.ciesin.org/docs/002-193/002-193.html
Some remedial action has been implemented but it may be too late since saline seepage still is spoiling the watershed.

I have responses to the rest of what you wrote but I will agree that if increase in carbon dioxide levels are happening a major cause is deforestation. The United States has addressed that concern and has become a net "carbon sink"nation because of our reforestation efforts.

Clarification/Follow-up by paraclete on 09/23/08 2:07 pm:
Tom
I am not speaking of problems which are unique to Australia. We too are addressing deforestation, but unless it is addressed in places like the amazon and asia our efforts are as wasting our time since any savings a swallowed up immediately. Net carbon and sequestration are a fallacy, a way of capital continuing its wasteful business. America and many others must reduce their carbon footprint dramatically. The recent flooding in India is a result of deforestation, it is a serious problem in many places and the timber goes to the industralised countries. What is forgotten is that if temperature rises the carbon sink which is the tundra will release what it is storing and then the game is lost for centuries.