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1. #1    I liked that "Grab a mop" line.
   written by CwV since 70 days 21 hours 25 minutes
2. #2    It's pretty obvious, of course. The media are owned by parent corporations + people have the attention span of racoons. The only thing that interests me is whether any influential Neocons were smart enough years ago to realize that the Bush regime could steal for years without anybody of significance noticing and then, at just the right moment when the country was sucked dry and people were starting to wake up and get angry, dump the problem on the black guy.
   written by smchris since 70 days 8 hours 13 minutes
3. #3    To call this a 'Bush Recession' is disingenuous. Where is the long list of Democrats who fought against the deregulation policies? I don't remember anyone threatening to fillibuster the repeal of Glass-Steagle in 1999, when Clinton was in the White House.
   
   Credit Default Swaps? Invented in 1997 during the Clinton White House.
   
   The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which spawned the Enron clusterhump? During the Clinton White House.
   
   We have all been sleepwalking since the end of WWII.
   written by zelator since 70 days 7 hours 38 minutes
4. #4    It may be disingenuous to call this a Bush recession insofar as it should properly be called a Republican recession. It should be recalled that Congress, not the White House passes and repeals legislation. Clearly Congress in 1997 and 1999 was in the hands of Republicans. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (all republicans btw) passed the Senate on a 54-44 party line vote. Credit Default Swaps have been around in some form since the early nineties (GHW Bush?). The current form of Credit Default Swaps were conceived by JPMorgan Chase in 1997 (not the Clinton White House). Exemption from any serious regulation of CDS was heavily pushed through by none other than Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) at the time...
   
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   written by fckbsh2u since 70 days 6 hours 35 minutes
5. #5    #4 - Let's say you are correct - I still want to know why the Democrats did not put forth much of an effort to sandbag these bills. It seems that even with a significant Democratic majority, we are still subject to the irrational whims of the Republican minority. What is the difference? Is it that Democrats don't work in lock-step? We are too 'nice'?
   
   I do agree that the essence of these deregulatory bills were planks from the Republican party platform all along - where was the veto pen from Clinton?
   
   Have we made the same mistake in electing Obama, who seems more interested in playing ball with his political enemies than coalescing his alleged political allies?
   written by zelator since 70 days 6 hours 19 minutes
6. #6    Democrats don't do ruthless very well. And those that do are our least favorite Dems, Raum Emanuel f'rinstance. The Republicans have self-selected a rather homogenous group, White, anti-tax, pro-Jeebus uber-consumers, and so can maintain discipline easily. The Dems are "everybody else" (or nearly so). While the GOP can forge one simple (knuckledragging) agenda and make it stick, there's just about nothing that Dems won't differ on. How do you represent a constituency like that?
   This is why it's crucial that progressive groups work WITH the elected reps, not ALWAYS in strident opposition. They and their staffs are always looking for input and lobbyists are right there with "co...
   
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   written by CwV since 70 days 5 hours 26 minutes
7. #7    #4:
   "The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (all republicans btw) passed the Senate on a 54-44 party line vote."
   
   Whatever maneuvering occurred earlier, including massive pressure from the hardcore neoliberals in the administration (many now on Obama's team), the final vote (what became law) on Gramm-Leach-Bliley was 90-8 in the Senate
   http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=1&vote=00354
   
   ...and 362-57 in the House.
   http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll570.xml
   
   The next year, again with lobbying by the WH, the Commodity Futures Modernization passed the Senate by UNANIMOUS consent, and the House by 292-60.
   http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2000/roll603.xml
   
   Our first truly neoliberal prez (deregulate-privatize-etc) was Carter. Each of his successors has followed suit.
   written by nasrudin since 70 days 5 hours 24 minutes
8. #8    #5 If only I could answer that. With respect to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act the final version, after reconciliation with the House version passed 90-10. (I think that you can stil find a You Tube video of Sen. Dorgan (D-ND) speaking of his concerns after the vote in 1999). Make no mistake here, I am not defending Democrats. They are not worthy of the effort. I can only say in Clinton's defense that we did have a string of budget surpluses after 1997 and the fortunes of the middle class did rise on his watch. These are facts that you can verify with very little effort. There is a chasm of difference between Clinton's conservative fiscal policies and the slash and burn robber baron policie...
   
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   written by fckbsh2u since 70 days 5 hours 21 minutes
9. #9    #8 - well said, but I have to posit that the Clinton and Bush approaches to capitalism differ only by scale. Both are classist and racist forms of priviligism. Even in the 'boom' years of Clinton, where the deficit did decrease, did that wealth make its way down the ladder of consumption? Or, are we paying now for the compromises we made back in the Clinton White House?
   
   It seems impossible to definitively segregate the fiscal policies of the White House dating back to our favorite senile president, Ronald Reagan. This notion that if the wealthiest Americans are happy, then we will all be happy is so misguided and destructive that it has to be considered as the essence of the financial crisis in America.
   written by zelator since 70 days 5 hours 14 minutes
10. #10    Bill Clinton left this country with a budget surplus and an employment rate that we crave so badly today. It began with his budget package of 1993, passed without a single Republican vote.
    
    George W flushed it away within his first two years, first on his tax cut for his wealthy compatriots, and then on his "war against terror".
    
    Yes, you bet this is the BUSH RECESSION, aided and abetted by a Republican Congress!
    written by tmchacko since 70 days 5 hours 11 minutes
11. #11    Are you kidding me? Arguing over whether this is Bush's recession or Obama's? Asking where the Democrat$ were when voting occurred? Asking why Clinton didn't veto anything?
    
    The answer is plain and simple: two wings of the same corporatist capitalist culture doing everything in their power to advance the interests of capitalism at the exoense of everyone else. That's no mystery. Marx was talking about this in 1844 and as much as the idiots in the US would like to think that Marx was discredited by the implosion of state communism in the late 80s and 90s, his economic writings are as vibrant and relevant today as they ever were. But let's let the supply-siders and the disciples of Hayek and Friedman run our economies, they are soooo good at it.
    written by matt since 70 days 4 hours 38 minutes
12. #12    #5. Your assessment of the Democrats as a group is fairly accurate. A while back, I said trying to get a group of Democrats together on something is like trying to herd cats. It very hard to do, it isn't very pretty, and in the end, someone is bound to get hurt.
    written by Dano2112a since 70 days 4 hours 17 minutes
13. #13    America is neither in a great recession nor depression ......... it's collapsing.
    
    Let's really get honest about our prospects and start calling it: "The Great Collapse".
    written by quousque since 69 days 19 hours

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