Obama '08?

… [Peter] Dreier convened a panel on community organizing at the Cooper Union Socialist Scholars Conference where Obama was converted to the profession.) …Dreier’s overall strategy was to first establish quasi-socialist institutions at the heart of the capitalist society—ACORN’s role in the banking system very much fitting the bill. In the short run, these de facto socialist groups would push society toward gradual “democratic” change. In the long run, perhaps, they’d serve as the vanguard of a revolution. The second part of Dreier’s strategy was to inject “unmanageable strains into the capitalist system, strains that precipitate an economic and/or political crisis,” by which Dreier meant a “revolution of rising entitlements” that “cannot be abandoned without undermining the legitimacy of the capitalist class.” In the short run, Dreier said, “the process leads to expansion of state activity and budgets, and . . . to fiscal crisis in the public sector.’ In the longer run, it may give socialist norms an opportunity for extension or at least visibility.”
…
It’s also of interest that the September-October 1979 issue of Social Policy features an article called “ACORN: Taking Advantage of the Fiscal Crisis.” … the message ACORN’s leadership brings across in this piece is that the seemingly specific and immediate reforms they organize around are ultimately intended to challenge “the structural foundation of society from which unequal distribution of goods and services derives.” … ACORN’s leaders say: “We view … fiscal crisis . . . as an opportunity to seize power for low- and moderate-income people, and an opportunity to “project a vision of a new society to our constituency.”

You may not think that important, but it affects our standing in the world and also sets bad precedents and even puts our own soldiers at risk. Not to mention just being plain wrong.

This, I'd like to see, but we all know okie is not capable of answering these factual questions - even if they are current history (past 10 years).

WHY SOCIALISM?
Barack Obama, while he was running for the office of President of the USA, declared, “I want to redistribute America’s wealth.” In his response to the assertion that raising taxes on the rich will harm the ability of the USA’s economy to create jobs for everyone, President Obama responded, “but it’s the right thing to do.”

You are nothing more than an empty suit on this issue, Okie. You don't have an answer for any specific data point at all. Do you realize that you are unable to discuss the topic in depth? I mean, is that even apparent to you? What do you do when I write things and you don't know what I'm talking about? Just pretend it doesn't exist?

Do you agree with me that by your logic, we are responsible for 9/11? After all, like you said - if we had never been involved there, it never would have happened. I'd love to hear you answer this.

Cycloptichorn

Instead of bothering to defend your lack of knowledge on the issue, you instead attack me. I don't think anyone finds that to be compelling argumentation.

I don't think you have any idea what is and isn't a simple question, Okie. Many of the things you think are simple, aren't. Your scenario presented here isn't simple either. There are a great deal of different things that could happen. If every decision or economic activity led to predictable results, our entire world and entire financial system would work differently than it does. I don't know how you can possibly say that these are simple things to discuss.

Nevertheless, unlike CI and others here, I do not claim that you are incapable of understanding these things. I just think that you don't want to, because you don't like the answers. They don't jive with your worldview.
Cycloptichorn

Reagan raised taxes when unemployment was nearing 11% -- imagine trying this today -- and proceeded to raise taxes seven out of the eight years he was in office. It's a fact that's terribly inconvenient on a day like today, but "no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people" as Reagan.

You cannot answer the simplest of questions

I also believe that demand usually trumps supply. In other words, if there is a demand, there will be a way that somebody will find to provide the supply, because there is profit in doing that. The drug trade is a good example. So when the government created ways, leading by example, for banks to bundle loans and sell them at a profit, the banks took the opportunity, until it all caved in.

My question about auto loans is very pertinent, because if the government made it illegal to redline certain models of cars or redline loans in economically distressed areas or applicants, the same thing would probably happen with cars as happened with the home loan industry.

Another example, do you think it would make sense for the government to force insurance companies to charge customers the same rate for homeowners insurance, without regard to the existence of a local fire department, or whether they live in a forest or in a very risky fire area ? In my view, that is exactly what CRA did, it was trying to make things equal, when things were not equal in the real world. It created a ripple effect throughout the entire housing industry.

Using my insurance analogy, charging the same premiums without regard to risk, would encourage more risky building in forests and high risk fire areas, which also brings about a skewed set of home values from area to area, which eventually spills over into entire regions and the country in general.

Face it, it is a good analogy. Fannie and Freddie and the government encouraged subprime and risky loans by guaranteeing they would buy them