Never in Bin Laden's wildest dreams...

[JohnnyRingo]

Osama Bin Laden has to be pinching himself.

His group of terrorists (the size of a High School cheerleading squad) has brought the entire world financial system to its collective knees. That has to far exceed his wildest dreams. He wanted to hit New York to disrupt the U.S. financial markets, remember? But now, he's basking in the knowledge that he was wings of the butterfly that has effectively caused the world to change.

After 9/11 we were told by the president to get out there and spend. If we don't the terrorists win. We did that, because that's what we like to do. I remember how odd it felt to be hearing that we needed to go shopping. I had been hearing for 20 years that we lagged far behind other industrialized nations in our savings rate, and that we as a nation needed to find a way to build our savings. Anyway we shopped. We tried to put the Visa and MasterCard brakes on the approaching recession, but we failed. Even two wars on the other side the the world couldn't stop it. The recession came anyway, so to stoke the spending further, Greenspan lowers the Fed rate time after time until it gets to 1%. This was to get bigger players in the game. Businesses, big and small were offered cheap loans to try to grow the economy.

It almost worked.

Real estate got involved. Deregulation enabled loans to be given to buyers that had never qualified for a Sears card, let alone a mortgage. The brokers knew what would fly past the lenders and coached their clients accordingly. The lenders were able to bundle these loans to theoretically spread the risk. Everyone was having so much fun. Making all that money, or being able to have a lifestyle that gave the impression that we were making a lot of money. And why not refinance? The rates are so low. Why not pull some of that equity out of your home and take a vacation, buy a new car, get a new kitchen? We all know the story. For a while that worked, but then people started to be asked to pay back that money.

Huh? We can't afford to pay it back. Where did you get that idea?

So here we are today. The world's financial markets are reeling. The government is putting future generations of taxpayer on the hook to keep the checks coming to everyone. The pensioners, the stockholders, but primarily to itself. If the financial markets failed worldwide, where is our government gonna go to borrow in the future. And by future, I mean next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, etc.


Hopefully, someone will act responsibly, and put down the shovel and quit digging us deeper into this hole. It will be a very long and very painful process. Paying back borrowed money always is. But until they do, Bin Laden has to be sitting in his cave pinching himself black and blue.

[rzemanfl]

1. K & R. Quick trip to the greatest page. n/t

[ananda]

2. I always thought that was why..

.. bin Laden wanted Bush to remain in office
and put out that last minute tape in 2004.

And why there have been no more on soil
terrorist attacks.

The job was done.

[secondwind]

3. what a fabulous post! and so very true! I LOVE your personal

"avatar" (did I spell it right?) Did you create yourself.............it is the BEST I have ever seen!


:kick:

[Oregone]

4. Bin Laden or not, wed be in the same mess.

Maybe it would of came earlier actually...hell, we probably still would of been pushed into Iraq regardless.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. You are giving Al Qaida far more credit than they deserve

this has absolutely nothing to do with 9.11... absolutely nothing

[sofa king]

10. Not so.

Four years ago, you couldn't walk down the street without hearing that ignorant poltroon Bush mumbling "nienulevunchangedeverthin." Bush's most glowing endorsement in 2004 came just days before the election, when Osama bin Laden himself graced televisions everywhere, effectively supporting Bush by endorsing John Kerry and ensuring that the election would be close enough to steal. One precinct in Ohio which was deeply involved in the election theft actually closed its doors to reporters on election night, citing a "terrorist threat."

Osama bin Laden made stealing the election of 2004 possible.

Without the attacks of 9/11, the Bush Administration would have gone down in history as a small cabal of white-collar criminals who were too stupid to do the evil they planned. After 9/11 and for two years thereafter, the Bush Administration got everything it wished. It got them re-appointed. It allowed them to conceal their own misdoings. It gave the Republican Party two critical years of unchecked financial planning, from 2003-2005, during which this crisis matured.

The attacks of 9/11 gave the Bush Administration the tools to avoid disclosing what they were doing, the expertise in government cover-up they needed to conceal their involvement in that crime and which they will use again to conceal their involvement in this crime. I'll give it less than two weeks before some Bush lackey tells Congress "no one could have predicted this," even though the evidence is already mounting that they not only predicted it, they steered their pals away from it and let it happen--just like 9/11.

And, should they decide that their crimes are too great to simply walk away from, the suspension of the fall elections and the death of American democracy itself will come from the legal tool set provided the Bush Administration by the attacks of 9/11.

I have no doubt that Osama bin Laden really does want to destroy America, and he knows exactly who to get to do it: George W. Bush.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Once again, you are giving OBL way, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart

WAAAYYYYYYYY too much credit

This has ALL to do with Reaganomics

Read on how 1929 came about, and then on the last 30 years

[graywarrior]

6. I totally agree.

I've been thinking about this for four years. Osama has accomplished his goals to bring America to its knees.

[samplegirl]

7. People making 10,000 a yr.

Bailing out all these pigs at the trough!!! Hi Scott hows the weather in L.A.?
:hi:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. It is the deluded dreams of the neocons that have created this outcome.

How much of it was planned or expected is yet to be determined.

[bulloney]

9. I attended a program Friday that showed the savings rate of consumers from other nations.

They ranged anywhere from 10% in Korea to 50% in China.

Know what the U.S. savings rate was?

MINUS 4%.

And that is part of the mess that we're in.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Hubby and I were talking about it... I got off the saving train for

two months... but we are the exception... not the rule