How can someone with Aspergers be left-wing?

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I don't have time to watch the video now, but I'll get around to it. It seems largely like sensationalist crap - the fast paced music and incessant associations don't help - and I find it quite funny that you're lecturing me on economic history with such confidence, which seems more indicative of an ignorance that preceives itself as knowledged rather than genuine knowledge.

Anyways, here's a video that's not sensationalist crap (from the Khan Academy). You pretty much forget why people were borrowing money against their homes and relying more heavily on credit - household savings were in decline.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZRkERfzzn4[/youtube]

To parrot your condescending advice,

GO EDUCATE YOURSELF ON PERSONAL DEBT!! !

Credit is a necessary factor in every capitalist economy. It is the only way capital investment in new industries and new technologies can happen. If money sits idle in people's mattresses and cookie jars the economy will stagnate. Money has to be either spent for end user consumption or lent out to finance new industries, new technologies, to replace worn assets and to invest in human capital (this means education and skill enhancement). Without credit the best one can hope for is a stagnating economy working at subsistence level.

ruveyn

Credit is a great thing when it is used for actual investments. Credit for consumer stuff is an incredibly bad idea though.

Nah, they just think that such people should have to work in the service of "god".

Actually the Tea Party couldn't care less about "god". They just want government to be smaller, which is a position pretty independent of religion.

The thing is that they assume that all the government services are taken up by charitable institutions with a focus on the religious institutions. It removes government by placing people on dependency of the church. Check out what Ron Paul has to say about it sometime, his position is pretty much what's assumed: that religion will assume the role of welfare provider.

Actually, far from forgetting about it, I've provided the explanation for it. People were borrowing against their homes because the 1995 amendments to the Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to make home loans to people unlikely to be able to repay them, which in turn inflated housing prices above realistically sustainable values. People thought those prices were sustainable, and borrowed against their homes on the mistaken belief that the largest component of their savings - the value of their home - had permanently and substantially increased.

Of course, when the folks who got mortgages without being able to repay them started failing to repay them, the bubble started bursting, squeezing the people who could pay their mortgages but found the values of their houses declining to the point where they were underwater. Meanwhile, many of the people who couldn't repay their mortgages have been getting a free ride, in many cases living in foreclosed properties for free for a couple of years now.

That still has nothing to do with the 1980s. In the 1980s, you still typically had to find a 20% down payment, unless you were a veteran and had VA insurance or something similar to act as a substitute. It was only after the CRA amendments in 1995 and the support of mortgage securitization through quasigovernmental agencies that the housing bubble and overmortgaging started to happen.

A return to the 1980s situation, where you saved a down payment and paid a market rate on mortgages, is what makes sense.

They assume no such thing. As ruveyn pointed out in another thread, certain necessary services, such as roads and sewers, are best provided by government. The Tea Party wants smaller government, not no government.


First off, I reject the idea that only the religious are charitable.

With respect to the Tea Party, they do not advocate elimination of all welfare programs. They do advocate rollbacks of things like the recent Obamacare expansions to medicaid, but the majority of proposed cuts have nothing to do with welfare, being in areas like rollbacks of Bush's medicare expansions and rolling back Obama's Afghanistan surge. They also oppose any further bailouts, though I suppose that could be cast as opposing "corporate welfare".

Individual candidates supported by various Tea Party groups may have additional views of their own, of course, and they may not agree in every respect. What they agree on is smaller government, and that's what gets Tea Party endorsement.

While Ecstasy may have some good effects it can also cause brain damage. It also has some pretty bad side effects...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA

Marijuana's side effects include impairment of short-term memory and working memory...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana

Also any drug that is a stimulent can be extremely addictive as well.



That isn't even remotely equivalent, because George Washington has been dead for over 200 years. Obama was running to be President and then is currently President of this country. The situation with George Washington is celebrating what he did for this country. The incident with Obama is the kind of propaganda you saw in Germany during the 1930s.



The intel we had at the time was that Saddam had WMDs still and wasn't complying with the UN resolutions. Our invasion of Iraq exposed a huge scandal in which countries like France were involved. Look up "Oil for Food" Scandal.

Furthermore, I think it is good riddence to rid the world of a monster that tortured his own people (including children). It would have been a lot nicer if we could have just dropped a single smart bomb and took out Saddam (he did try to assassinate a former President afterall).

In all honesty Saddam's mistake was thinking George W. Bush was all talk, seriously Bush is from Texas.




Uh altering the Declaration of Independence so that it politically correct isn't a cause for concern? Teaching children to sing praise songs, praising an Elected Official currently in office isn't a cause for concern?

You're way, way off on your interpretation of the housing crisis. Banks were never forced to make loans and the overwhelming majority of subprime loans were adjustable rate loans (ARM's) which the government does not insure. Most of these loans were made between about 2002 and 2007. It was when we started seeing these rates suddenly adjust upward that people stopped being able to afford them. Second to these subprime loans were home equity loans made during approximately the same time period. Everyone wanted to "increase their home's value" by getting a fancy new kitchen. They treated their homes like piggy banks. Unfortunately, they were working with false equity.

As you'll recall, the states hardest hit were the ones with very high housing costs. It wasn't the first time buyer with the modest budget that caused the collapse, it was the McMansions popping up in every neighborhood that the middle class never truly could afford.

And no one lives for free in a foreclosed home. Once the sherriff's sale takes place - they're out. It does happen that sometimes while a homeowner is in pre-forclosure, they are able to avoid paying the mortgage, but that's either because they simply can't, or because the bank told them to do so. In order to be considered for a short sale or a deed-in-lieu, the homeowner must be behind in their payments. The pre-foreclosure process usually takes about 3-6 months, not years, although in some states it does take longer.

You never pointed out the particular incident with examples of anyone being taught "praise songs" (much less any government-sanctioned incident that even remotely compares to Nazi Germany... Godwin's law much?) nor are you citing any specific examples on how the declaration of independence is being altered.

Look up Community Reinvestiment Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

That was what "encouraged" banks to make bad loans.



Because home values were skyrocketing due to an artificial force on the market...



And I feel bad for the people whom could originally afford their homes but then lost their jobs due to ponzy scheme falling apart.

Sorry, I should have said "defaulted" rather than "foreclosed" homes. But yes, some people do live in them for years:


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... Highlights

No mortgage payments and 99 weeks of unemployment insurance to cover her other costs. No wonder she stayed unemployed instead of finding a new job. I bet she finds one right quick now that she actually needs one.

I don't think your cynicism is justified in this case.

Las Vegas has had a steady rise in unemployment since the recession hit - to its current level of 15%. Qualified school teachers who were financial incentives to move to the area 5 years ago now find themselves competing with unskilled workers for jobs that no longer pay for their homes.

Problem is in some cases you're penalized for finding a job that pays at minimum wage and one can't support their family on minimum wage. And you get a lot more money from unemployment.

Unemployment pays at most, 405/week (at least in NY state) and it is based on 50% your prior wage, up to that 405 max. Taxes are not deducted and it does not come with any benefits. Hardly a winfall.