Throw money at the top and hope it will trickle down to the rest of us...

this was a well thought out rant.....sadly i prolly know even less about the subject, so it wouldnt be good for me to contribute, agreeing or disagreeing

You are obsolutley right. Our right to a free market has gotten these Corps. to sell the very fabric of our Counrty- the working class. The problem is because these Corps. most the time don't represent any one Counrty or at least they don't have to represent America as a patriot. They have gotten so big that they are world wide and will go anywhere theycan to get richer, regardless of how it effects our counrty or our enviroment. The financial institutions as well are  not governed to represent America in Americas best interests. Instead they will continue to do business with our enemies at the expense of our economy and our enviroment. Eventually its the enemy that owns this monopoly on a global market and will take us fiskally (our money or debt) and when  we can't pay,,, what happens when you can't pay? Someone brakes your legs. We are completley bent over the barrel and it's leaders like Bush and possibly McCain that will continue this mess because they hold interests in these global companies and it means alot to their rich society. Only until now,, now that it has gotten so bad are peolpe realizing that if we continue to sell our Country short ,, we won't have a place to live, thats where Actions and votes that hurt our economy or our soldiers, is an act of TREASON and the peolpe responsible should be held accountable and be charged !!! Everything they have allowed has been for monitary gain at the expense of this Nations people and our environment and in my opinion is Treason. How can you call yourself a Patriot as you outsourse and vote against bills that help our troops in a mess the leads have put them in? YOU CANT, YOU ARE A TRAITOR and should be charged. Get ready boys cause our enemy could litterally perform a D-DAY on us and we would be over thrown before our troops got half way across the ocean, And the world hates America because of   our leads and their money making freedom. The Corps and the Bush administration , and most of all the rules by which they are allowed to conduct business will be the reason for our Counrty's demis. They have created  a way worst reputation for this counrty than Osama gave the Muslims or Hitler gave the Germans. So buy American or what you can. I bet everything on our bodies and in our homes was made by children of our enemy and then shipped around the world with millions of gallons of fuel burning our air and waters so I can be typing this today. All that fancy ski gear we'll have on? Made by own enemy, improoving their economy at the same time you hand your money over ruining our economy- every trasaction one at a time, forced to help them get rich and make us pour. So buy American if you can! And vote for who will hopefully proove to be a Patriot and not just a sales man!

Word bro.... word

A little harsh on the whole treason thing?
have you ever seen the documentary "the corporation"?

I do echo the sentiment of feeling betrayed though.
I feel like our parents and grandparents left us a hell of a mess to clean up in the wake of the 20th century. Look back for a second, how crazy was that century? We went from riding horses, to driving automobiles, then flying airplanes, and then going to the fucking moon!? Nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, computers, microchips, particle colliders, skyscrapers.
Certainly we have to thank our ancestors for making this huge advancements in technology, but the social responsibility was not there.  They weren't concerned with well being of all mankind, they were more concerned with the achievements of a few.
But doesn't technology benefit us all?
Well yes, but maybe we went just a little too fast, maybe they should have planned this out a little better. Hah, not maybe. DEFINITLEY.
Why are we worried about bringing a man to Mars, when there are starving desparate people all around the world? We should be developing technology (metaphor) to bring the lower class to the level of the middle class. Not give the upper class rides into outer space.
While I'm on the topic of space exploration, is there really any fucking point until we can go faster then the speed of light? (which is impossible) We already know there aint shit in this galaxy.
I guess I just have some big problems with the way the government spends our money. (like prosecuting pot users)
Oh shit, Lets talk about that, fucking grandparents..... fucking swayed by bullshit propaganda
Why was pot illegalized?
a little history
CANNABIS was a huge crop in the early 1800s. Hemp is a valuable agricultural product, it can be used to make clothes, rope, biofuels. Hemp fibers are incredibly strong and dirt cheap (this stuff grows like a weed! HAH!
The problem lies in harvesting, in the early 1800s slave labor was used to harvest hemp.
Later because of the abolition of slavery and the advent of the cotten gin, growing cannabis as an agricultural product was not nearly as efficient as growing cotten. So it became very rare, but still grown for recreational uses.
Okay, fucking fast forward to the 1920's and 1930's
Guess what, technology has evolved, and now cannabis can be grown and harvested much more efficiently than cotton, but there's a problem. There is now this long established cotton industry that stands to be completely wiped out by the emerging cannabis industry. So the people in the Government who have ties to this established cotton industry decide to bail them out (does that sound familiar? anti progress... cowards).
Now begins a propaganda and slander campaign that will only be rivaled in the future by the Nazis. Just like Adolf Hitler was able to convince the german people to hate the Jews, Harry Anslinger was able to convince the american public to hate and fear marijuana. Commercials depicted young boys smoking marijuana and acting like they are PCP. America was told that smoking pot turned young men into murderers and made young women want to have sex with mexicans and african americans.
Doesn't sound like any of the pot I've ever smoked...
It does kinda remind me of whiskey though...
Conclusion: because our grandparents were fucking ignorant, they were duped into illegalizing a miracle plant.
There's so many examples of things like this that happened in the 20th century, it makes me fucking sick.

No I haven't but I bet it's moving. The problem with all propaganda is that It's usually bias to one degree or another and statistics are always circumstantial. As for the Treason Statements, Example- take money from our enemy so they can invest in America to get under our skin? Treason!  Fire America to employ our enemy just to make more millions? Treason! Anything that takes  away from home and empowers another country for self gain is Treason! Unfortunatley for the little guy triing to make it happen, they usually have no choice because the system is geared to make outsourcing the only way to afford production. Isn't that completley insane that it's cheaper to ship it around the world than make it here at home and ship it a few miles? If our dollar was stronger and our system was on America's side,,, things would work. We basically are feeding the drug dealer before our own children like a crack addict. Self Treason!  Peolpe with holdings in local oil wells are excepting money from the Gov that we payed them in tax dollars to NOT produce oil so that the Gov. ( our leaders) can controll their market because they have interests in their Global ( not American ) oil companies,,, then they act like there is nothing they can do about it  except have their own Global ( not American) companies drill more holes of their own to still control their market. That is Treason on the Gov's side and  on the receiving side of those subsedies.. Treason!!!! They have done it for years without prosecution when they paid the farmers to not produce. Its gone on so long and we've ( the gov and our leaders for their rich society) have made it so bad, they are going to get us all killed! Treason! And seriously anyone that thinks America is the same old bad ass we used to be is high on pride. Our enemy has more soldies than our whole civilian base and could easily wipe us off the planet, and why haven't they? Because we have made everyone except ourselves so rich and we owe them so much money they can't afford to take us yet, until there is no hope for payment, then what?

yea you should see it. Its really interesting to see how corporations began and evolved.
The truth is, chartered corporations as they are, are legally required to outsource, lie, cut corners etc.. corporations are legally required to reward their shareholders as much as possible, by an legal (and a lot of time illegal) means possible.
We need massive massive restructuring of our laws regarding businesses, but I don't think its going to happen easily. The only thing that is going to change things enough is a complete economic collapse. If that doesn't happen I think we are going to be too stubborn to figure it out on our own.

but I've always been a fucking pessimist

You are right ,, it will have to get really bad i.e. revolution or getting overthrown ( hopefully doesn't happen) to get better. About the hemp,, I heard that the blacks had controll of the hemp market and the whites had control of the cotton market and they were doing better because as you said,, processing cotton was easier than the hemp... until.... a german inventor introduced the machine to process hemp effectivly and thats when they decided to make hemp illegal... to secure their market. If the white boys had hemp and the blacks had cotton we would all be wearing hemp clothing and smokin blunts in a 20 pack. Not to mention that would be enviromentally better , alot better.  Anyway politics suck! All parties should be abolished. Nice talkin shit with ya, It's like work talkin about that stuff to anyone and it's on everyones mind regardless because of the mess our Nation is in. Skiing is the only thing that puts my mind to rest, so hopefully we can tear some up together. let me know.

Word.

Yeah we should just let those big fat companies just die.  I mean what's the worst that can happen?  The thousands of people that work for those companies will lose their jobs, no big deal.  All the working class people that have savings/home loans with those companies will lose their homes or savings, big whoop.  Its not like those little things will affect the economy.  We should just let it fall apart because of the few executives that were un-ethical crooks.  I mean its not the government's job to keep a stable economy.  I suppose what the left wants is for these companies to go under, tax the executives 99.9% and give all that money back to the unemployed and homeless (whom the government will build living domiciles for) in the form of free (shitty) health care and welfare checks.

But it sounds like you guys have already thought all this through.  Good post, you make a lot of valid points.

Ok i'm really curious that in a thread about the 700 billion dollar bailout i haven't heard the words SUBPRIME LOAN at least once.

When the housing market boomed many borrowers took out these loans and speculated that they would make enough money to cover the interest but when the market fell so did these peoples ability to pay off their loans. Now there is so much debt left over from the market failure and nobody to clean it up so its either the banks will have to declare bankruptcy or have their losses covered by the government. Sound familiar? Can somebody remind me of what happened the last time banks were forced into bankruptcy on a large scale?

To anybody who failed their us history class, great depression.

Hate me if you want, it doesn't change the fact that some sort of measure needs to be taken to make sure that this crisis is resolved or else banks will collapse, people will lose their money.

By the way I actually do agree somewhat with what you said about outsourcing and the decline of the US dollar. I couldn't let this thread continue without mentioning the part subprime loans play though.

Goddamnit, don't make this partisan, that's fucking stupid, I don't feel this way because other democrats do. You see, I harbor a lot of anger towards the people in power and the upper class, so I would love to see them go down hard. Problem is, they're gonna take a lot of us with them.

I guess my main point is that a bailout is not going to fix the fundamental problem with our economy.
Much like drilling for more oil it is just going to delay the problem.
Now delaying can be good, very very good. It would give us time to try to fix the bigger problems with our economy. But IMHO THAT WON'T FUCKIG HAPPEN. This little bailout bill is gonna eventually pass and then we're going to forget about it and breathe a big unjustified sigh of relief, then 6 years later when the same shit starts happening again because nothing got fixed, we'll be right back we're we started.

Yeah, there was no reaosn to bring perties in to this, sorry about that.  I had just listened to some things that irked me and let it carry over into this conversation.

I do disagree with you on wanting rich people go down, that would be against the glorious capitalistic foundation of our country, but I do wish there was a way to hold the corrupt accountable for the lives they ruin.  So I'm definitely with you on that point.