Jacksonville, FL

8/2/2015 2:52:20 AM
woniota Jacksonville, FL 50, joined Jul. 2014	That woman is odious and a total phony. Meet singles at DateHookup.dating, we're 100% free! Join now!
8/2/2015 4:04:35 AM	Jacksonville, FL
thekinghasrisen San Diego, CA 30, joined Nov. 2013	Quote from woniota: That woman is odious and a total phony. I personally don't trust her. Then too...I don't trust any of these clowns.
8/2/2015 5:09:25 AM	Jacksonville, FL
giss7 New Orleans, LA 56, joined Nov. 2014	Quote from woniota: That woman is odious and a total phony. Or you could just say she's a Democrat
8/2/2015 7:33:28 AM	Jacksonville, FL
maniacmassager Lawrence, MA 49, joined Mar. 2008	Youd be a complete fool to even consider voting for her.
8/2/2015 9:18:00 AM	Jacksonville, FL
testsignup Springfield, VA 62, joined Sep. 2009 online now!	Quote from woniota: That woman is odious and a total phony. Definition of all politicians, I'm afraid. Being odious and a total phony is a Constitutional requirement for higher office in this country.
8/2/2015 9:22:43 AM	Jacksonville, FL
condor_0000 Tampa, FL 57, joined Feb. 2013	The dark side of American politics 29 July 2015 World Socialist Web Site https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/29/pers-j29.html An “Editor’s Note” published on page two of Tuesday’s New York Times confirms that the supposed “newspaper of record” in the United States served as the instrument for a politically-motivated dirty trick directed at the presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Last Thursday’s online edition of the Times, and its Friday print edition, claimed that the inspectors general of the State Department and the intelligence agencies had requested a “criminal investigation” into whether Clinton “mishandled sensitive government information” in the private email account through which she carried out communications during her four years at the State Department. The front-page report, under a three-column headline, touched off a media firestorm over the weekend, with suggestions that the launching of a criminal probe into Clinton’s email practices could doom her campaign. The issue dominated the Sunday talk shows on all the television networks and was virtually the sole topic of discussion on ultra-right talk radio and Fox News. In the Tuesday “Editor’s Note,” the Times admitted that its account was false. There was no request for a “criminal investigation,” or for an inquiry into Clinton’s own conduct. Instead, the request was a “security referral” into “whether sensitive government information was mishandled” in a handful of emails that passed through Clinton’s mail server. There was no allegation of potentially criminal conduct and no specific reference to Clinton’s personal role. However, although the Times maintained that the July 23-July 24 article “was based on multiple high-level government sources,” the newspaper did not report which of these sources supplied the false information about Clinton. This is certainly a relevant and newsworthy issue: either key Obama aides, or top officials of the Justice Department, State Department or intelligence agencies, have leaked a report targeting the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. The two scenarios are not, of course, mutually exclusive, given Obama’s intimate ties with the intelligence apparatus. If Obama loyalists were the source, that would suggest subterranean divisions within the Democratic Party wing of the political establishment. That this may be the case is reinforced by Obama’s public musing, during his ongoing trip to Africa, that if it were not for the constitutional prohibition, he could run for and win a third term in the White House, a clear suggestion that he finds the current Democratic presidential field lacking. If Justice, State or CIA/NSA officials were the source of the leak, this would indicate significant opposition within the apparatus of the state itself either to Clinton’s campaign in particular, or to the prospect of any Democrat succeeding Obama in the White House. This would be even more important to report to the American people, since it would constitute a deliberate—and illegal—intervention into the US elections by agencies and officials who are accustomed to manipulating the political process in countries around the world. The record of the Times over the last two decades reinforces the likelihood of the second scenario, in which Friday’s article was a deliberate provocation emanating from the intelligence agencies. Again and again, from the fabrications of Judith Miller about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to more recent charges of Syrian government gas attacks, Russian missiles shooting down a Malaysian jetliner and Chinese military hackers invading US government computer systems, the Times has been a conduit for entirely unsubstantiated claims, emanating from undisclosed sources, that promote the interests of sections of the military-intelligence apparatus. The Times gives no accounting of the source of the attack on the Clinton campaign because it is not an independent publication in any genuine sense, but rather the house organ of factions within the US financial and political elite and military/intelligence establishment that use its pages to manipulate public opinion in support of their desired policies. The bogus report of a Clinton “criminal referral” is only one of a series of incidents that suggest that the 2016 presidential campaign is becoming the focal point for an extraordinary escalation of political tensions within the US ruling elite. In the past week alone, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, positioning himself as the most right-wing of the Republican presidential hopefuls, publicly denounced Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a liar. One of Cruz’s rivals for the Christian fundamentalist bloc, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, blasted the six-nation nuclear agreement with Iran, claiming that President Obama “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” These statements follow a series of increasingly provocative and bigoted comments by billionaire Donald Trump targeting the 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and many of Trump’s 2016 rivals. Trump currently leads opinion polls of likely Republican primary voters and has held the largest rallies of any of the Republican candidates. What these episodes suggest is that the underlying social conflicts within the United States are beginning to overload a political system that is rotted through and through. The two officially recognized political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are controlled by corporate interests and increasingly removed from the real concerns of the great mass of the American people. There is mounting discontent over protracted economic slump, declining living standards and ever-deepening social inequality. Neither capitalist party has anything genuine to offer to working people. Both are seeking to divert and channel the rising social anger, the Democrats through the “left” demagogy of Bernie Sanders, the Republicans through increasingly vitriolic attacks on scapegoats such as immigrant workers. It is impossible to predict, more than 15 months before Election Day, how the deepening crisis of American imperialism, and of world capitalism as a whole, will be reflected through the medium of the US presidential election campaign. Suffice it to say that there will be twists and turns and sudden political shocks, foreshadowing the entry of the American working class into mass struggles against the capitalist system.
8/2/2015 9:38:03 AM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	*dontcha think if we wanted to read that fishwrap, we would go to the website ourselves?*
8/2/2015 10:05:40 AM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from woniota: That woman is odious and a total phony. And that clown car of republicans isn't? There is one man running who is not a phony. [Edited 8/2/2015 10:05:53 AM ]
8/2/2015 10:14:28 AM	Jacksonville, FL
nat_now Ocala, FL 56, joined Jul. 2013	Oh yeah.. when I think of hillary I think commander in chief
8/2/2015 10:14:46 AM	Jacksonville, FL
drwookie Reading, PA 61, joined May. 2013	Quote from woniota: That woman is odious and a total phony. Obviously, you love the odor cause you can't stop talking about it.
8/2/2015 10:19:20 AM	Jacksonville, FL
wvtravlrr Ravenswood, WV 56, joined Mar. 2013	If you can trust Facebook as a sampling of American voters.... Then her campaign is in a world of shit....
8/2/2015 10:25:03 AM	Jacksonville, FL
nat_now Ocala, FL 56, joined Jul. 2013	biden/clinton ?
8/2/2015 10:31:25 AM	Jacksonville, FL
maniacmassager Lawrence, MA 49, joined Mar. 2008	Quote from nole_89: And that clown car of republicans isn't? There is one man running who is not a phony. Yeah, hes only a full blown socialist.
8/2/2015 10:39:55 AM	Jacksonville, FL
drwookie Reading, PA 61, joined May. 2013	Quote from maniacmassager: Yeah, hes only a full blown socialist. If you understood what socialism is, you would know he's only a half baked socialist. But, you're doing a great job at being demonstrating your antisocial mindset.
8/2/2015 10:54:40 AM	Jacksonville, FL
reginamc Las Vegas, NV 59, joined Mar. 2011	Honestly I get the feeling that she thinks she should be able to just show up on Inauguration Day, it's like the whole campaigning thing is beneath her. Her voice, her speaking style, everything about her has become so imperial and condescending that it's just unbearable to watch.
8/2/2015 10:59:37 AM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from maniacmassager: Yeah, hes only a full blown socialist. He's a democratic socialist which is not the old style socialist you associate with gov't control. Instead of listening to right wing BS about him, why don't you actually listen to what he says. He makes more sense than just about anyone else. Conventional politics will not solve the problems we face today. We are living in unconventional times. The middle class is being destroyed by an oligarchal power structure. But, you keep voting republican and you will find yourself working harder and longer hours just to maintain your current status. You can forget about getting ahead.
8/2/2015 11:03:21 AM	Jacksonville, FL
nat_now Ocala, FL 56, joined Jul. 2013	If u believe you'll get ahead with anyone but trump..you're NUTS.. These are unusual times, and begs for UNCONVENTIONAL cure..other than breaking up big banks and making more and more community banks... what bernie proposes is fair mediocrity.
8/2/2015 11:07:01 AM	Jacksonville, FL
mr_bad_robot Cincinnati, OH 40, joined Jul. 2014	Quote from reginamc: Honestly I get the feeling that she thinks she should be able to just show up on Inauguration Day, it's like the whole campaigning thing is beneath her. Her voice, her speaking style, everything about her has become so imperial and condescending that it's just unbearable to watch. Could be that was the deal made back in 2008. Hillary was cast out in favor of Obama but promised a shot at the office after Obama completed his terms. She went into this thinking she had it all to her own. Problem is her past has caught up with her and now she is a liability for her party. Warren has flat out refused to run so now Bidden is the only person to put into the race. If Bidden enters that means her Party has lost faith in her.
8/2/2015 11:21:05 AM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	Quote from nole_89: He's a democratic socialist which is not the old style socialist you associate with gov't control. every other country with it is weak or foundering. and with only token military sorry, dreamer, socialism is communism lite
8/2/2015 11:25:01 AM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	Quote from nole_89: Conventional politics will not solve the problems we face today. We are living in unconventional times. The middle class is being destroyed by an oligarchal power structure. But, you keep voting republican and you will find yourself working harder and longer hours just to maintain your current status. You can forget about getting ahead. the middle class is being destroyed by several factors. and your commie friends are helping by crushing small business with regulation and taxes. big boxing everything, for control and party contributions constantly enlarging government and chasing companies out of here playing ball with the arabs and making sure we dont develop OUR OWN energy resources. dividing us by gender,race, class, age, so noone can unify, prosperity is the communist enemy
8/2/2015 11:28:57 AM	Jacksonville, FL
woniota Jacksonville, FL 50, joined Jul. 2014	Quote from reginamc: Honestly I get the feeling that she thinks she should be able to just show up on Inauguration Day, it's like the whole campaigning thing is beneath her. Her voice, her speaking style, everything about her has become so imperial and condescending that it's just unbearable to watch. Couldn't have said it any better than this.
8/2/2015 11:31:32 AM	Jacksonville, FL
reginamc Las Vegas, NV 59, joined Mar. 2011	Quote from woniota: Couldn't have said it any better than this. Plus, I don't think she really wants it anymore. She has no fire whatsoever, nothing.
8/2/2015 11:43:55 AM	Jacksonville, FL
woniota Jacksonville, FL 50, joined Jul. 2014	Stand by for the inevitable Bubba Bimbo Eruptions.
8/2/2015 11:45:11 AM	Jacksonville, FL
wvtravlrr Ravenswood, WV 56, joined Mar. 2013	Quote from reginamc: Honestly I get the feeling that she thinks she should be able to just show up on Inauguration Day, it's like the whole campaigning thing is beneath her. Her voice, her speaking style, everything about her has become so imperial and condescending that it's just unbearable to watch. *BINGO*......
8/2/2015 11:45:32 AM	Jacksonville, FL
condor_0000 Tampa, FL 57, joined Feb. 2013	Quote from peterk2: the middle class is being destroyed by several factors. and your commie friends are helping by crushing small business with regulation Picked Out a Coffin Yet? Take Ibuprofen and Die July 24, 2015 by Mike Whitney http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/24/picked-out-a-coffin-yet-take-ibuprofen-and-die/ Excerpts: In case you missed it: The FDA has just issued a warning on various prescription and non-prescription drugs that Americans ingest by the boatload. As it happens, these seemingly benign pain relievers can kill you even if you scrupulously follow the recommended dosage. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a blurb from the FDA website: “FDA is strengthening an existing warning in prescription drug labels and over-the-counter (OTC) Drug Facts labels to indicate that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can increase the chance of a heart attack or stroke, either of which can lead to death. Those serious side effects can occur as early as the first few weeks of using an NSAID, and the risk might rise the longer people take NSAIDs. (FDA Strengthens Warning of Heart Attack and Stroke Risk for Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, FDA website) Notice how the FDA refers to “death” as “a serious side effect.” Why isn’t this headline news? People take tons of these chemicals everyday thinking they’ve been thoroughly tested and are totally safe. Now we find out that’s not the case. Now we discover that you can get a heart attack or stroke “as early as the first few weeks of using” them. Doesn’t that come as a bit of a shock to you, dear reader? Doesn’t that make you suspect that the FDA is not telling the whole truth here, but is simply covering up for a profit-obsessed industry that doesn’t give a rip about its customers health? (According to FDA drug reviewer Ronald Kavanagh) “While I was at FDA, drug reviewers were clearly told not to question drug companies and that our job was to approve drugs. We were prevented, except in rare instances, from presenting findings at advisory committees. In 2007, formal policies were instituted so that speaking in any way that could reflect poorly on the agency could result in termination. If we asked questions that could delay or prevent a drug’s approval – which of course was our job as drug reviewers – management would reprimand us, reassign us, hold secret meetings about us, and worse. Obviously in such an environment, people will self-censor.” Does the name “Vioxx” ring a bell? If not, here’s a little refresher from an article by Fred Gardener in Counterpunch titled “Merck Pays a Pittance for Mass Deaths”: “Merck has agreed to pay $950 million and has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge over the marketing and sales of the painkiller Vioxx,” the New York Times reported Nov. 23 … The FDA had initially approved Vioxx (after a hasty “priority review”) in May, 1999 to treat osteoarthritis, acute pain, and menstrual cramps. By September 30, 2004, when Merck announced its “voluntary recall,” some 25 million Americans had been prescribed the widely hyped drug. Evidence that using Vioxx doubled a patient’s risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke —based on a review of 1.4 million patients’ records— was about to be published in Lancet by David Graham, MD, an FDA investigator. The FDA director’s office, devoted valet of Big PhRMA, had contacted the Lancet in a futile effort to stop publication of their own scientist’s findings. Graham’s data indicate that 140,000 Americans suffered Vioxx-induced heart attacks and strokes; 55,000 died, and many more were permanently disabled. The Merck executives’ real crime was conspiracy to commit murder … An early clinical trial had alerted them to the fact that Vioxx caused coronary damage. Their response was to exclude from future trials anyone with a history of heart trouble! [Edited 8/2/2015 11:45:53 AM ]
8/2/2015 11:49:13 AM	Jacksonville, FL
annamally Santa Clarita, CA 52, joined Feb. 2013	Quote from reginamc: Plus, I don't think she really wants it anymore. She has no fire whatsoever, nothing. She sees that no one is showing up to hear what she has to say. She knows it's over .
8/2/2015 11:50:32 AM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	yeah, the commie system is just so much better, like in china feed your dog, and it dies, noone knows why baby formula so your baby can die, what a mystery
8/2/2015 11:54:20 AM	Jacksonville, FL
maniacmassager Lawrence, MA 49, joined Mar. 2008	Quote from nole_89: He's a democratic socialist which is not the old style socialist you associate with gov't control. Instead of listening to right wing BS about him, why don't you actually listen to what he says. He makes more sense than just about anyone else. Conventional politics will not solve the problems we face today. We are living in unconventional times. The middle class is being destroyed by an oligarchal power structure. But, you keep voting republican and you will find yourself working harder and longer hours just to maintain your current status. You can forget about getting ahead. Who cares what type of socialist he is. a socialist is a socialist. its all bad.
8/2/2015 12:17:50 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nat_now Ocala, FL 56, joined Jul. 2013	Quote from annamally: She sees that no one is showing up to hear what she has to say. She knows it's over . Canned applause? Lol I believe she and bill have made themselves into another bill and melinda. A foundation. Humanitarian causes. They'll better serve the world in that capacity.
8/2/2015 12:25:58 PM	Jacksonville, FL
hunter12gauge Bellaire, OH 52, joined Apr. 2008	Quote from reginamc: Honestly I get the feeling that she thinks she should be able to just show up on Inauguration Day, it's like the whole campaigning thing is beneath her. Her voice, her speaking style, everything about her has become so imperial and condescending that it's just unbearable to watch. Unbearable now? Imagine if that LYING B*TCH became president. "YOU ain't seen nothing yet" would be her theme song.
8/2/2015 12:42:34 PM	Jacksonville, FL
sureshot40 Drumright, OK 46, joined Apr. 2011	Someone should ask Hillary if she would tolerate someone in her administration using personal email to do government buisness on thier personal server and will she continue doing it too.
8/2/2015 1:35:36 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from nat_now: If u believe you'll get ahead with anyone but trump..you're NUTS.. These are unusual times, and begs for UNCONVENTIONAL cure..other than breaking up big banks and making more and more community banks... what bernie proposes is fair mediocrity. Republican trickle down policies is why, adjusted for inflation, Americans on average earn about $5,000 less today than in 1999. It is not the illegal aliens that are taking the middle class jobs. It is the LEGAL ones. It's called H1-B visas. A U.S. citizen makes the sacrifice earns an I.T. bachelors degree, gets out in the work force and either can't find a job or he finds the wages much below what he was promised when deciding on his major because congress allowed a flood of people from places like India to flood the I.T. job market on H1B VISA'S. And republicans vehemently support this. Bernie will get rid of the H1B visa program and U.S. citizens will get the pay they worked so hard for. Trade: Bernie was vehemently opposed to most of our trade deals because they are "free" trade and not "fair" trade. They only serve wealthy stock holders and corporate executives. People like us get screwed and our jobs shipped out of the country. Bernie only supports "fair" trade and not "free" trade. Agreements that benefit the average worker and create jobs here. Screw the executive bonus pay! Taxes: Bernie is for penalizing corporations that ship jobs overseas. Today they are given tax breaks for doing so. That's the republicans there. Bernie is also for eliminating tax havens for the wealthy. They will not longer be able to hide their money in the Cayman Islands. Corporations would no longer be able to base their headquarters overseas and still be labeled a U.S. company. They would be treated like any other foreign company. Bernie would set up a tax structure with a higher tax rate, but corporations would be able to avoid the higher tax rate if they push that money down to their worker bee employees. Those are just a few of the things. Everything Bernie is about is helping the middle class. He is on your side. Voting republican is voting against your own interests.
8/2/2015 1:39:35 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from peterk2: the middle class is being destroyed by several factors. and your commie friends are helping by crushing small business with regulation and taxes. big boxing everything, for control and party contributions constantly enlarging government and chasing companies out of here playing ball with the arabs and making sure we dont develop OUR OWN energy resources. dividing us by gender,race, class, age, so noone can unify, prosperity is the communist enemy Most of the rules, regulations, restrictions and licensing requirements that starting from the ground up small businesses encounter are there at the behest of large corporate interests to maintain their oligarchal control over those industries. Try again tonto. [Edited 8/2/2015 1:39:54 PM ]
8/2/2015 1:46:33 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from maniacmassager: Who cares what type of socialist he is. a socialist is a socialist. its all bad. I think the people in Norway and Switzerland would disagree with you. From Time magazine Life expectancy, social connections, personal freedom and the economy all play a role in happiness The happiest people in the world live in Switzerland, a new study found. The third World Happiness Report, released by the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network on Thursday, ranked 158 countries based on Gallup surveys from 2012-15 and analyzed the key factors contributing to happiness levels. Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Canada were the top five happiest countries, while the West African nation of Togo was the least happy. Those Scandinavian countries all practice democratic socialism. [Edited 8/2/2015 1:46:49 PM ]
8/2/2015 1:54:34 PM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	even with heavy arab immigration to scandinavia, ill bet miami's jackson memorial system handles more shootings, stabbings, rapes, and violent assaults than all three major scandinavian countries handle in a week put together memphis has more crime than the entire region put together, too. screw you, hole and your lying analogies. harv much? *Quote from nole_89:* Most of the rules, regulations, restrictions and licensing requirements that starting from the ground up small businesses encounter are there at the behest of large corporate interests to maintain their oligarchal control over those industries. Try again tonto. your friends help, but you ignore that, since it doesnt fit your commie narrative [Edited 8/2/2015 1:56:57 PM ]
8/2/2015 1:59:36 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from peterk2: *your friends help, but you ignore that, since it doesnt fit your commie narrative* The type of banks that gave loans out to help small businesses get started were small community banks. The financial crisis caused by the removal of Glass Steagal elimnated most of those banks and concentrated even more oligarchal control over the banking system. Those mega banks don't want to give loans to small entrepreneurs. Bernie wants to break them up and restore the community bank system. Your republican friends do not because Wall Street finances their campaigns.
8/2/2015 2:11:03 PM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	your usual lie, it wasnt GS, it was YOUR friends in congress and the presidency building the mortgage mess machines turning two sleepy little quasi government agencies into toxic mortgage eating behemoths. got a social? you can live in a mcmansion! how clinton, dodd, frank, and the other little commies who architected it even have the NERVE to show their faces in public is a mystery.
8/2/2015 2:26:07 PM	Jacksonville, FL
reginamc Las Vegas, NV 59, joined Mar. 2011	http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/29/andrew-napolitano-hillary-clinton-lies-about-email/?page=all#pagebreak "The FBI does not investigate for civil wrongdoing or ethical lapses. It investigates behavior that may be criminal or that may expose the nation’s security to jeopardy. It then recommends either that indictments be sought or the matter be addressed through non-prosecutorial means. Given Mrs. Clinton’s unique present position — as the president’s first secretary of state and one who seeks to succeed him, as well as being the wife of one of his predecessors — it is inconceivable that she could be prosecuted as Gen. David Petraeus was (for the crime of failing to secure classified materials) without the personal approval of the president himself. Let’s be realistic and blunt: If the president wants Mrs. Clinton prosecuted for failing to secure classified materials, then she will be, no matter the exculpatory evidence or any political fallout. If he does not want her prosecuted, then she won’t be, no matter what the FBI finds or any political fallout." Well I guess we know the answer to this one. She skates. "I have not seen the emails the inspectors general sent to the FBI, but I have seen the Clinton emails, which are now in the public domain. They show Mrs. Clinton sending or receiving emails to and from her confidante Sid Blumenthal and one of her State Department colleagues using her husband’s foundation’s server, and not a secure government server. These emails address the location of French jets approaching Libya, the location of no-fly zones over Libya and the location of Stevens in Libya. It is inconceivable that an American secretary of state failed to protect and secure this information."
8/2/2015 2:37:47 PM	Jacksonville, FL
woniota Jacksonville, FL 50, joined Jul. 2014	Dim-ocrats are scrambling around looking for a new candidate. Hillary is poison.
8/2/2015 2:39:22 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from peterk2: your usual lie, it wasnt GS, it was YOUR friends in congress and the presidency building the mortgage mess machines turning two sleepy little quasi government agencies into toxic mortgage eating behemoths. got a social? you can live in a mcmansion! how clinton, dodd, frank, and the other little commies who architected it even have the NERVE to show their faces in public is a mystery. You know nothing about it. The troubled housing market only exposed an overall risk in the securities industry. When America’s housing market turned, a chain reaction exposed fragilities in the financial system. Pooling and other clever financial engineering did not provide investors with the promised protection. Mortgage-backed securities slumped in value, if they could be valued at all. Supposedly safe CDOs turned out to be worthless, despite the ratings agencies’ seal of approval. It became difficult to sell suspect assets at almost any price, or to use them as collateral for the short-term funding that so many banks relied on. Fire-sale prices, in turn, instantly dented banks’ capital thanks to “mark-to-market” accounting rules, which required them to revalue their assets at current prices and thus acknowledge losses on paper that might never actually be incurred. Trust, the ultimate glue of all financial systems, began to dissolve in 2007—a year before Lehman’s bankruptcy—as banks started questioning the viability of their counterparties. They and other sources of wholesale funding began to withhold short-term credit, causing those most reliant on it to founder. Northern Rock, a British mortgage lender, was an early casualty in the autumn of 2007. Complex chains of debt between counterparties were vulnerable to just one link breaking. Financial instruments such as credit-default swaps (in which the seller agrees to compensate the buyer if a third party defaults on a loan) that were meant to spread risk turned out to concentrate it. AIG, an American insurance giant buckled within days of the Lehman bankruptcy under the weight of the expansive credit-risk protection it had sold. The whole system was revealed to have been built on flimsy foundations: banks had allowed their balance-sheets to bloat (see chart 1), but set aside too little capital to absorb losses. In effect they had bet on themselves with borrowed money, a gamble that had paid off in good times but proved catastrophic in bad. Regulators asleep at the wheel Failures in finance were at the heart of the crash. But bankers were not the only people to blame. Central bankers and other regulators bear responsibility too, for mishandling the crisis, for failing to keep economic imbalances in check and for failing to exercise proper oversight of financial institutions. The regulators’ most dramatic error was to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt. This multiplied the panic in markets. Suddenly, nobody trusted anybody, so nobody would lend. Non-financial companies, unable to rely on being able to borrow to pay suppliers or workers, froze spending in order to hoard cash, causing a seizure in the real economy. Ironically, the decision to stand back and allow Lehman to go bankrupt resulted in more government intervention, not less. To stem the consequent panic, regulators had to rescue scores of other companies. But the regulators made mistakes long before the Lehman bankruptcy, most notably by tolerating global current-account imbalances and the housing bubbles that they helped to inflate. Central bankers had long expressed concerns about America’s big deficit and the offsetting capital inflows from Asia’s excess savings. Ben Bernanke highlighted the savings glut in early 2005, a year before he took over as chairman of the Fed from Alan Greenspan. But the focus on net capital flows from Asia left a blind spot for the much bigger gross capital flows from European banks. They bought lots of dodgy American securities, financing their purchases in large part by borrowing from American money-market funds. In other words, although Europeans claimed to be innocent victims of Anglo-Saxon excess, their banks were actually in the thick of things. The creation of the euro prompted an extraordinary expansion of the financial sector both within the euro area and in nearby banking hubs such as London and Switzerland. Recent research by Hyun Song Shin, an economist at Princeton University, has focused on the European role in fomenting the crisis. The glut that caused America’s loose credit conditions before the crisis, he argues, was in global banking rather than in world savings. Lax capital ratios proved the biggest shortcoming. Since 1988 a committee of central bankers and supervisors meeting in Basel has negotiated international rules for the minimum amount of capital banks must hold relative to their assets. But these rules did not define capital strictly enough, which let banks smuggle in forms of debt that did not have the same loss-absorbing capacity as equity. Under pressure from shareholders to increase returns, banks operated with minimal equity, leaving them vulnerable if things went wrong. And from the mid-1990s they were allowed more and more to use their own internal models to assess risk—in effect setting their own capital requirements. Predictably, they judged their assets to be ever safer, allowing balance-sheets to balloon without a commensurate rise in capital (see chart 2). The Basel committee also did not make any rules regarding the share of a bank’s assets that should be liquid. And it failed to set up a mechanism to allow a big international bank to go bust without causing the rest of the system to seize up. [Edited 8/2/2015 2:39:49 PM ]
8/2/2015 2:44:19 PM	Jacksonville, FL
reginamc Las Vegas, NV 59, joined Mar. 2011	Bottom of the barrel Biden. "Beau told me on his deathbed ... (tears) .... run, dad ... run ... (tears tears) ... the country ...... needs ................... you. (tears tears blubber blubber) Can't wait.
8/2/2015 2:47:16 PM	Jacksonville, FL
1hotone4u San Diego, CA 57, joined Jul. 2009	Clinton is as crooked as President Obama and would only make the economy worse with more bailouts & regulation. She will not be our first woman president because people see through her lies. With President Obama, it didn't matter because he was black and could make a good speech.
8/2/2015 2:50:31 PM	Jacksonville, FL
nole_89 Loganville, GA 52, joined May. 2010	Quote from 1hotone4u: Clinton is as crooked as President Obama and would only make the economy worse with more bailouts & regulation. She will not be our first woman president because people see through her lies. With President Obama, it didn't matter because he was black and could make a good speech.
8/2/2015 3:04:08 PM	Jacksonville, FL
thunderpump Tacoma, WA 51, joined Dec. 2009 online now!	Quote from woniota: Dim-ocrats are scrambling around looking for a new candidate. Hillary is poison.
8/2/2015 3:05:06 PM	Jacksonville, FL
peterk2 Fort Lauderdale, FL 54, joined May. 2007	*feel the bern.......of communism*
8/2/2015 3:36:47 PM	Jacksonville, FL
woniota Jacksonville, FL 50, joined Jul. 2014	Old Bernie hates that we have 20 choices of underarm deodorant. I'd call him a nut but how he talks is really the way dimwit-ocrats think.

woniota - Jacksonville, FL

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