Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[ghostrunner]

I think there might be more outrage, but Bush is already unpopular and he's on the way out. If you want to "throw the bums out," that's already happening to some degree. Democrats are anxious to see Obama, and rank and file Republicans aren't happy with Bush in many respects. It looks like the recent polls may be reflecting some new dissatisfaction, however.


I think this whole thing is a good example of why you have anti-elitism, to the extent it exists. That along with the deficit and national debt. You have a lot of supposedly intelligent, educated, qualified people in charge of something that is hard for the average person to understand, but it's obvious the intelligent people don't grasp basic concepts like "spend less than what you have" and "don't loan money to people who can't afford to pay you back." It's more complicated than that, but then again it's really not. There's the perception that maybe these people have outsmarted themselves and lost sight of basic truths. This was the whole reason Ross Perot got my vote and about 18% of the total in 1992. To the extent Palin appeals to me at all, it's in this area. She took federal money and tried to get more, but when it came to making her own budget she was pretty aggressive in making cuts.

[clement]

Outrage is the right word and there isn't nearly enough of it out there. This crisis was not created by Bush so the fact that he will be leaving soon is not a good reason to not be outraged. It was however created by a wing of the Republican party that has been touting for the past 30 years how wonderful and efficient deregulation and unfettered free markets are. These same people have been putting down government at every turn. And one of these people who has been running right along with all of this rhetoric is now running for president. And he's suddenly turning overnight into Mr. Populist who wants to clean up all the greed on Wall Street. The absurdness of the absolute nerve of this guy, and his bald-faced liar of a running mate are only surpassed by the public's seemingly willingness to be completely duped by their bull-[expletive].

The fact that nobody is being dragged away in handcuffs also has to rank up there as one of the more outrageous things related to this crisis.

[clement]

I think this whole thing is a good example of why you have anti-elitism, to the extent it exists. That along with the deficit and national debt. You have a lot of supposedly intelligent, educated, qualified people in charge of something that is hard for the average person to understand, but it's obvious the intelligent people don't grasp basic concepts like "spend less than what you have" and "don't loan money to people who can't afford to pay you back."

I don't see this connection at all. The anti-elitism has nothing to do with policy - after all it's the anti-elitists who are most responsible for this crisis. Calling people like Obama (or Kerry before him) elitist is just a way to frame intelligence and intellectual accomplishments in a negative light so that you can elect intellectually challenged morons.

[ghostrunner]

I think this whole thing is a good example of why you have anti-elitism, to the extent it exists. That along with the deficit and national debt. You have a lot of supposedly intelligent, educated, qualified people in charge of something that is hard for the average person to understand, but it's obvious the intelligent people don't grasp basic concepts like "spend less than what you have" and "don't loan money to people who can't afford to pay you back."

I don't see this connection at all. The anti-elitism has nothing to do with policy - after all it's the anti-elitists who are most responsible for this crisis. Calling people like Obama (or Kerry before him) elitist is just a way to frame intelligence and intellectual accomplishments in a negative light so that you can elect intellectually challenged morons.

Maybe we're not talking about the same thing. I'm not trying to justify what you're talking about. I suppose I don't mean "anti-elitism."

I'm just saying there's a reason certain kinds of people are appealing to voters. If you frame things like the budget or this recent fiasco in simple terms, it's clear what the problem is. I don't put Bush in this category of people, as he was unable to state anything with clarity.

I think Obama brought the elitism charge on himself by questioning why people might "cling" to religion or guns, as if they didn't have genuine appreciation of those things. It sounded snobby, and it was in my opinion.

[ghostrunner]

Outrage is the right word and there isn't nearly enough of it out there. This crisis was not created by Bush so the fact that he will be leaving soon is not a good reason to not be outraged. It was however created by a wing of the Republican party that has been touting for the past 30 years how wonderful and efficient deregulation and unfettered free markets are. These same people have been putting down government at every turn. And one of these people who has been running right along with all of this rhetoric is now running for president. And he's suddenly turning overnight into Mr. Populist who wants to clean up all the greed on Wall Street. The absurdness of the absolute nerve of this guy, and his bald-faced liar of a running mate are only surpassed by the public's seemingly willingness to be completely duped by their bull-[expletive].

The fact that nobody is being dragged away in handcuffs also has to rank up there as one of the more outrageous things related to this crisis.

I don't understand calling for outrage. Outrage seems to come rather cheap these days, as far as I can tell. People of both parties seems to think I should be outraged almost every day about something, and the bulk of it sounds like a bunch of meaningless crap to me. I specifically remember Bob Dole saying in '96 - "where's the outrage?" I don't even remember what the hell he was talking about.

This particular issue is big, but what the average person supposed to do with their outrage? We have a number of votes we can make coming up soon, so it's on each person to do their job and find out who is responsible and vote those people out of office. We have a process to deal with these problems, so let's use it. I don't see the point in getting angry about it.

I think it's wrong to lay this at "the Republicans" feet. We had a Democratic congress for roughly 40 years up until Clinton was in office, and 14 solid years between 1980 and 1994. Clinton was in office through 2000. What did they do about it?

[Hungary Jack]

I am disgusted by it all. But outrage seems pretty pointless. This country has had plenty of witch hunts over the years, and more and more outrage seems to fall along party lines. In the grand scheme of things, I view it as another manifestation of the ongoing culture wars in this country. Each side fans the flames of perceived injustice, immorality, ignorance, but in the end the bluster resolves and accomplished nothing.

[Arthur Dent]

I think this whole thing is a good example of why you have anti-elitism, to the extent it exists. That along with the deficit and national debt. You have a lot of supposedly intelligent, educated, qualified people in charge of something that is hard for the average person to understand, but it's obvious the intelligent people don't grasp basic concepts like "spend less than what you have" and "don't loan money to people who can't afford to pay you back." It's more complicated than that, but then again it's really not. There's the perception that maybe these people have outsmarted themselves and lost sight of basic truths. This was the whole reason Ross Perot got my vote and about 18% of the total in 1992. To the extent Palin appeals to me at all, it's in this area. She took federal money and tried to get more, but when it came to making her own budget she was pretty aggressive in making cuts.

Elitism is a very confused concept in this country. To the extent that anti-elitism is about opposing an unequal society where certain people claim unjustified power or authority, then I'm on board. I think anger at a financial elite that drove their own firms into the ground and have inflicted severe damage on the economy falls into that category. However, this tends to get mixed up with what should more properly be called anti-intellectualism -- the idea that knowledge and study are weak and feminine and that good decisions only require common sense and upstanding values. The Nextel commercial where the firemen run Congress is a good example of this as are most of the Republican "anti-elitist" attacks on Democrats including Palin's small town routine.

I don't understand calling for outrage. Outrage seems to come rather cheap these days, as far as I can tell. People of both parties seems to think I should be outraged almost every day about something, and the bulk of it sounds like a bunch of meaningless crap to me. I specifically remember Bob Dole saying in '96 - "where's the outrage?" I don't even remember what the hell he was talking about.

This particular issue is big, but what the average person supposed to do with their outrage? We have a number of votes we can make coming up soon, so it's on each person to do their job and find out who is responsible and vote those people out of office. We have a process to deal with these problems, so let's use it. I don't see the point in getting angry about it.

I think it's wrong to lay this at "the Republicans" feet. We had a Democratic congress for roughly 40 years up until Clinton was in office, and 14 solid years between 1980 and 1994. Clinton was in office through 2000. What did they do about it?

I'm calling for fixing the problems with the system of finance that allows for these routine expensive crises. Democracy is about far more than showing up every couple years and picking between two candidates. That's just step one. If we want this sort of thing to stop, we are going to have to demand it. If the people don't get involved, you can count on any new rules being dictated by the other interested party: the finance industry.

[clement]

There was a time in our country's history where people would get out and do something about things that were happenning. Maybe that's misplaced energy to some, so I guess people can instead continue to channel their energy to their Wiis, their ipods, their netflix, and espn. Of course if people are too busy with their toys to be bothered with the corruption that we saw in November 2000, then I guess I shoudln't be surprised that they won't get off siitting on their hands for this thing either. It's funny... criminal activity takes place and this whole anti-government country of ours just turns to the government and has some kind of faith (or is it numb apathy?) that they will actually take care of the problem.

ghost: if you think that accusations that Obama is an elitist is based on that "religion and guns" quote then I think you're being awfully forgiving to his accusers. That quote didn't help, but the elitism label they've been trying to stick on him has a lot more to do with his party affiliation and his intellect. Remember, they put the label on John Kerry 4 years ago, for what was it again? Windsurfing?

[planet planet]

There was a time in our country's history where people would get out and do something about things that were happenning. Maybe that's misplaced energy to some, so I guess people can instead continue to channel their energy to their Wiis, their ipods, their netflix, and espn. Of course if people are too busy with their toys to be bothered with the corruption that we saw in November 2000, then I guess I shoudln't be surprised that they won't get off siitting on their hands for this thing either. It's funny... criminal activity takes place and this whole anti-government country of ours just turns to the government and has some kind of faith (or is it numb apathy?) that they will actually take care of the problem.

ghost: if you think that accusations that Obama is an elitist is based on that "religion and guns" quote then I think you're being awfully forgiving to his accusers. That quote didn't help, but the elitism label they've been trying to stick on him has a lot more to do with his party affiliation and his intellect. Remember, they put the label on John Kerry 4 years ago, for what was it again? Windsurfing?

What history was this? I've expressed outrage throughout this thread, but how does one actually do something about these kind of things? Express outrage at the polls. The spin I've heard today from McCain's camp is that Obama is trying to play these events for a political advantage. Keep on, keeping on IMO. There is no way McCain can back out of being a deregulatator. He has too much history to backtrack on that record.

[arnie.k]

There was a time in our country's history where people would get out and do something about things that were happenning. Maybe that's misplaced energy to some, so I guess people can instead continue to channel their energy to their Wiis, their ipods, their netflix, and espn. Of course if people are too busy with their toys to be bothered with the corruption that we saw in November 2000, then I guess I shoudln't be surprised that they won't get off siitting on their hands for this thing either. It's funny... criminal activity takes place and this whole anti-government country of ours just turns to the government and has some kind of faith (or is it numb apathy?) that they will actually take care of the problem.

ghost: if you think that accusations that Obama is an elitist is based on that "religion and guns" quote then I think you're being awfully forgiving to his accusers. That quote didn't help, but the elitism label they've been trying to stick on him has a lot more to do with his party affiliation and his intellect. Remember, they put the label on John Kerry 4 years ago, for what was it again? Windsurfing?

now that's what i'm talking about ! you go clement !

you're the first american i've heard/read who genuinely seems outraged, and seems to understand the extent to which these people cheated, misled and stole from you.