Yo. Just popping in here so that my online friends don’t worry about me. No, I’m not hospitalized (yet), I don’t have cancer, etc. I’m just too darn lazy to update because I have so much crap to do (Wow, isn’t that overused?).
I’m now the new treasurer of my grade level, and my first job is… SELL CLASS T-SHIRTS! Woohoo, what an intellectually stimulating activity!
(Note the heavy sarcasm, peoples. Come on, I know you can tell.)
Oh, and another reason why I didn’t update: ‘CAUSE THERE’S NOTHING TO UPDATE ABOUT. That’s right, no drama (Majorly, at least), no incentive to rant, nothing out of the ordinary.
But there is the US’s most frequent recession. I can’t believe our economy is nose-diving straight into a depression, possibly one that could rival that of the Great Depression. I mean, yesterday, within thirty minutes, the DOW (or whatever it’s called) went down from 520 to over 800 points, which is still not as big as the drop after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went out of business and the government decided to devise a $700 billion dollar bailout plan (coming out of OUR POCKETS), but who can deny that THIS IS NOT GOOD?
Oh, and from what my carpool’s head told me, the bailout plan shot up to $820 billion, and the damage done would take up to TWO TRILLION DOLLARS to repair. I think the only cost bigger than this would be our government’s national debt.
See, none of this would’ve happened if the government had more oversight over the CEOs of the mortgage banks. But noooo, the big businesses have toooo many regulations already, so why should those lying politicians interfere any further?
Uh-huh. Yeah.
October 8, 2008 at 3:41 am
The US’s most frequent recession? This happens all the time?! (I jest. I know what you mean.)
It looks like we’re going to weather the global crisis pretty well. Our banks are very well regulated, so while they’ve hit some trouble, none of the big banks are anywhere near collapsing. The opposition leader’s actually going off at them for being too profitable! The Australian dollar has fallen dramatically in value, though… and interest rates were slashed by 1% yesterday.
I don’t actually understand why Americans are so up in arms about this bail out. I mean, I get that it’s dumb to “bail out” the banks instead of just regulating them in the first place. I can sympathise with that line of thought, and even agree. But it’s too late now, isn’t it? If you don’t bail them out, won’t your economy collapse completely? SAVE THE ECONOMY, and then LEARN TO REGULATE YOUR BUSINESSES. That’s the only thing the US can really do now without looking like idiots.
What really annoys me isn’t the argument above, but the whiny arguments. “Oh my GOD, but that’s MY money, what does the government want it for? That’s just BLATANT SOCIALISM!” How dumb are those whiners? Do they just think that being taxed AT ALL is socialism? Socialism is a whole ideology — the belief that all people are equal, that all people have the right to the same opportunities, healthcare, education, housing, and so on as each other. Yes, taxes are high in such a society, but on the other hand people spend less. At any rate, high taxes to provide free services to the people has VERY VERY LITTLE in common with extremely-low-but-slightly-higher-than-before taxes to save the crumbling capitalist economy. One might even say they were diametrically opposed. Are the whiners brain-dead or is it just not common knowledge what socialism’s all about?
Also, has it occurred to these people that if they hoard their money and DON’T provide it for use in the bail-out, their bank will shut down and take all their money with it, and with a collapsed economy they’d have nothing to spend that money on anyway? Do the whiners want that?
October 9, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Ah, blab blab, I fibbed up again. I find that I do that a lot… if my thoughts go too fast for my hands to write, I skip over words. Teehee.
I agree. The bailout plan, I guess, is essential (although it’s not making such a significant impact on our economy… but then again, the kids in my school never really felt the impact of such a disastrous bear market that our parents are now crying over), but after our economy is up again, those darn CEOs should be regulated.
I hate those whiners, too. All the political cartoons at Time.com at the time of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had something to do with the ‘beast of the burden’ being handed off to taxpayers, and how we’re so pitiful, and the government is so cruel, blabbity blah.
I admit, the government has not always been doing a great job of spending our tax money (*cough* Iraq *cough*), but if we aren’t going to pay for the bailout, who will? Gah, and those who aren’t accusing the government of being socialist are fuming over their poor investments. Idiots, the stock market will go back up soon. It’s called the business cycle. Circumstances will adjust to fit the economy and help it grow (Okay, as long as the government uses our tax money wisely).
Oh, and at the beginning of our economy’s decline, we had our interest rates cut about a percentage point overall as well. DOW dropped 800 again today, to about 8000-9000 points.