Stabilizing the housing market; is that really the key to solving our economic problems

[burythehatchet]

as John McLurch keeps saying?

[napi21]

1. I think it would help (a litle) but NO it will NOT solve the economic

problems! I'm trying very hard to step back and listen to what everyone is saying about this whole mess, because everyone seems to have an agenda, and most of the people you hear are radical doomsayers on one side & eternal optomists on the other. The housing market is only one piece of the problem.

[TexasObserver]

2. He has no idea what he's saying. He's repeating words they have taught him ...

He doesn't understand, and that's why it sounds like such gibberish.

[OhioChick]

3. JOBS

Then people can PAY for their mortgages, credit cards, cars, etc.

[TahitiNut]

5. Bingo. Not just "jobs" but fair wages and salaries.

The FUNDAMENTAL issue is the rape of the working class. Thirty years of fiscal and economic policies that shovel out taxpayer funds to the wealthiest, shift the tax burden to WORKING people while literally setting a ZERO PERCENT TAX RATE ON LONG-TERM CAPITAL GAINS - unearned income attributable to the labor of others - is an absolute abomination. We have borders that are among the most onerous in the world for people to cross (legally) ... but which are transparent to capital being shipped off-shore. We have an immigration system (both legal and illegal) which is nothing more than trafficking in cheap human labor. We've seen organized labor destroyed.

And, to make matters worse beyond imagination, we STILL have a GOP ticket campaigning on MORE tax breaks for the wealthy while RAPING the working class taxpayer to bail out the most egregious and corrupt pirates in the financial system. Appalling.

[SmokingJacket]

7. For a REALLY long time now, all the new jobs have been at ridiculously

low wages. Minimum wage -- even several dollars above minimum -- is far too low to pay rent, buy gas, and forget about health insurance.

People work 40 hrs a week and can't afford to live. The problem was disguised for a while by the availability of easy credit. Now that's gone. I can't believe things haven't collapsed sooner.

[Warpy]

4. Like all GOPs, Magoo is blind

to the demand side of the economic equation. That's why they invariably crash the economy when they get power too long.

By depressing wages over the last 40 years while allowing easy access to credit, they've encouraged people to take on crushing debt in order to try to maintain the lifestyle their parents/grandparents expected. The problem, of course, is that there is a finite limit to the debt a person with depressed wages can assume before servicing it starts to eat into subsistence, the amount of cash it takes to keep him alive.

That's when people stop spending and default on the debt, and that is what crashes the economy. No one is more surprised than the GOP when this happens, but we on the left expect it every single time they gain power.

Adding to the problem this time is the massive fraud in the financial industry summed up in the word "derivative."

This is why we need to keep conservatives out of power for the foreseeable future. Their "pro business" label is simple code for starving the demand side of the economic equation and it always leads this country to the same place: financial disaster.

[taught_me_patience]

6. Absolutely Not

The key is good paying jobs and wages that rise faster than inflation.

[burythehatchet]

8. I believe our real decline began

when productivity gains accrued to capital, while wages went down.