name one economy in the world .....that is immune....when the USA goes .....everybody goes......just like 1929.....so no one except morons and terrorists should be cheering

Gouletcolonial,

Terrorists or morons? You just described about half the world's population (morons being the bigger of the two groups).

you got that right senor Miller

everyone should be cheering, when the us goes down everyone will be better off, their an imperialism. Of course at first many countries will suffer, but trust me once it's gone their will be a lot more food to eat for the rest of the world. For example, the u.s. consumes 50% of the worlds gasoline and only makes up about 5% of the worlds population, just to name one resource. A poorer United states would mean a richer world.

The capitalist gets profit from the exploitation of labor of the worker.

The value of the worker's labor is the value of the basket of goods and services needed to produce and reproduce the worker's ... and his family's ... labor.

The price of labor ... wages or salaries or fees or commissions ... is the monetary expression of the value of labor, as defined above, or, in other words, the expression of value of labor in money terms.

Prices fluctuates at, above, or below value, but over time evens out.

The capitalist wants to reduce the price of labor to the lowest amount needed to keep the worker alive ... barely ... and working or, in other words, subsistence.

Outsourcing by the capitalist is the search for subsistence wages, increasingly for young women, for child labor, and for workers unprotected by trade unions.

Bourgeois democracy is the best form of state for this barbarism.

In a crisis, the capitalist cuts wages toward his ideal of subsistence.

The capitalist believes and feels that he himself is being "exploited" by the worker if the capitalist pays a wage that exceeds the bare minimum needed to keep the worker barely alive.

This "excess" is the difference between the price of labor and the value of labor or when the wage is more than enough to keep the worker barely alive.

This wage of the worker includes the individual money payment to the worker for the sell of his labor as well as the benefits of social programs... education, health care, housing, nutrition, etc. ... collectively administered to the workers in lieu of individual wages.

This is why the US imperialists ... the supreme section of the international bourgeoisie ...acting directly or through IMF and World Bank, demand wage cuts and closing schools and hospitals, even in the best of economic times, for less developed countries.

The job of ideological reactionaries is to make this system of exploitation and oppression look beautiful and sublime.

In the short term. the current crisis of US capitalism may benefit capitalist economies of some Latin American countries by the acceleration of the export or flow of production, capital, and jobs from the USA to Latin America in search for a higher rate of exploitation of labor, to outlast the ravages of the crisis.

But, in time, the export of US jobs will drive down the US demand for goods and services whether they are produced in the US or Latin America, causing a fall in retail sales and huge lay-offs, thus intensifying the decline of US demand for cheap imports.

The result will likely be a progessive disappearance of a US market and US demand for many Latin American exports, regardless of the rate of exploitation of labor, unless this rate is reduced to economic system of slavery, pockets of which already exists in the DR, El Salvador, Haiti, Guatemala, and Honduras.

LBJ should have pulled out.......

Corporation are the enemy!!!

"Nevertheless, Cox said countries that import raw materials, especially Central America and the Caribbean, 'which buy part of their food and fuels abroad, are going to be hit'."

oooo

So, how do these countries get capital to fund the production of goods for export to earn hard currency to buy their" food and fuels" from abroad?

Either foreign/domestic investment ... or ... intensification of labor exploitation ... or ... prostitution ... or ... drug trade ... or ... human smuggling.

First, you offer a large segment of the children of country to sexual exploitation of degenrates from Canada, USA, and Europe in the so-called "tourist industry" which is really modern-day prostitution based on child whores. Of course, the child whores get only a wage that keeps them alive barely.

Capitalism has always been the prostitution of children, men, women, and other animals on a grand scale, but bourgeois ideologists present this depravity and perversion as "development."

Why do you guys even acknowledge Belial? Honestly, I'm not even sure he exists. More than likely it is someone playing a character to get a rise out of everyone. It's almost impossible to be wrong 100% of the time, even with his gorilla logic. He sounds like Noam Chomsky on acid.

http://www.thecandidacy.com/categ....andalls-rants/politics-in-the-dr/

In the USA, the glorious paradise of capitalism, over a million children live off the streets, most of them are full time or part time whores or, more specifically, streetwalkers..
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts/education.pdf

USA is a kind of model in the field of depravity that many less developed countries strive to emulate.

This is why degenerates love capitalism.

even the doorknob chomsky mentor of queen hillary .....on acid would make more sense than toxic piggy belial

"Why do you guys even acknowledge Belial?" asks a befuddled RHMiller.

Why do you? Honestly.

"I'm not even sure he exists," RHMiller wonders.

Are you sure of anything? Honestly?

"More than likely it is someone playing a character to get a rise out of everyone," RHMiller speculates.

Only the Nazarene makes the dead rise. I like the dead to remain down.

"It's almost impossible to be wrong 100% of the time, even with his gorilla logic," RHMiller says with finality.

Are you sure of this? Honestly?

"He sounds like Noam Chomsky on acid," RHMiller compares and discredits.

I am a Marxist-Leninist who wants to impart in a democratic manner a proletarian content to the state, not an anarchist as is Prof. Chomsky who wants to abolish the state whatever it's class content.

Neither I nor Prof. Chomsky believes or feels we are morally or socially inferior to the slimy bourgeois, your model for humanity; so, we don't need "acid" to feel good about ourselves.


"

"Chomsky is a self-proclaimed Libertarian-Socialist. Not even close to being an anarchist, " RHMiller declares to correct Belial's never-ending string of inaccuracies. Ok, now I'm done feeding the troll. Bye Bye Comrade

"Chomsky is a self-proclaimed Libertarian-Socialist. Not even close to being an anarchist, " RHMiller declares to correct Belial's never-ending string of inaccuracies. Ok, now I'm done feeding the troll. Bye Bye Comrade"

oooo

Chomsky, in your quote above, is referred to in the third person.

However, Chomsky, in the first person or in his own words, sees "libertarian-socialism" as one of many present-day and competing trends within the anarchist tradition.

See, his "Notes on Anarchism" (1970)
http://www.zmag.org/Chomsky/other/notes-on-anarchism.html

RHMiller, you are a philistine. So, you have no business even coming near matters of theory.

Philistines invariably babble about their offensive opinions of others because philistines are so stupid that they can't stay on topic without immediate exhaustion of their knowledge, if any, of the topic.

THE TOPIC: "Latin American economy isn’t "immune" to U.S. crisis"

Key terms are;

(1) "Latin American economy."

Given the limited degree of integration, this term may not exist, except nominally. What seems to exist instead are Latin American "economies."

(2) "Isn't immune."

Whatever it is that exists, this negative terms seems to apply to it.

(3) "U.S. crisis."

The question of the reality of the US crisis is not even posed, rather it is presupposed. Only vile running dogs of US imperialism will deny the reality of the US crisis.

So, the topic is about the economies of Latin America, whether collectively or individually, being hurt by a failed and unsustainable capitalism in the US.

Which ones the most and the least?

Will any benefit?

Belial, stop plagirizing Marx's manifesto and get real. Don't like capitalism? Then leave the USA and go live in Cuba. Why are you still here if you hate it so much? Obviously you think you would be better off not having the freedom to choose your own profession, or your own food, or what books to read, or even what to say.

the plagiarizing klepto cant help himself....he will be executed for crimes against humanity and boredom

"Then leave the USA and go live in Cuba. Why are you still here if you hate it so much?"

oooo

Reciprocally, I can tell you where to go, but you sound like you're already there.

I'm still here for the same reasons that your bourgeois masters are still here ... to prevail in the class struggle, here.

If you and your bourgeois masters like it here so much, why don't you keep your filthy behinds here and out other countries, like Iraq, which you occupy and commit genocide based on disgusting lies about WMDs and 9/11?

"Hate?" I defend the US constitution against people like you who grovel before and kisses the behind of G.W. Bush, a man who treats and says "The US Constitution is nothing but a Goddamn piece of paper."

If you advise people to go to Cuba because they do or don't like it here, why are you so two-faced about your advice. You no doubt support the prison sentences up to 10 years and fines up to $250,000 which restricts millions of US citizens from going.

the class struggle you say.?....you have no class.....you are nothing but a toxic swine,spewing your jingo propagandistic drivel like projectile vomiting on people who are civilized.....class you say?you are lower than a snakes belly

"U.S. crisis."

oooo

The question is how critical is the crisis. There is no transparency in the US capitalist financial system. Just a big pile of lies.

Still, DR has to disclose to the US imperialists everything DR does or thinks about doing, like the "Sun" deal.

The bourgeois scum waives the requirement of transparency for the US imperialists.

Bourgeois masters??? LOL. I see you are still living in feudal times. First, you should be glad you live in a country that allows you to write this garbage without being persecuted. Second, like you, I oppose the Iraq war and do think we should respect the Constitution. However, the difference between us is that I don't just sit down, cross my arms, play the victim, and write nonsense. Third, as an investor, I can tell you for sure that there is more than enough disseminated information in the US financial markets for anyone to make an informed decision on where to put your money. Those who make the wrong decision lose, and those who make the right one win. That's what capitalism is all about. Or maybe you just want to win without making an effort at all? Maybe you'll like to stay in your beautiful American couch all day and have the government take care of you, as supposed to doing it yourself.

saturn15....stop abusing the mentally challenged ...you should be ashamed of yourself

actually, saturn, there is no correlation i know of between good decision making and capitalism. if you make good decisions in socialist economies you will win ,just as you do in capitalism. and i disagree with you regarding the democratic state of disseminated information about financial markets. maybe you should have explained that to the guys from Bear Sterns, not to mention the others who are going to take the fall in the near future. i hope you do not lose your money, but posting an article which asserts the certitude of astute decision making is highly simplistic at best. and please, not everyone who disagrees with the core tenets of capitalism is looking for a handout. i don't know where in God's name some people get that notion from. there are, incidentally, lots of people who lie on the couch all day, doing nothing constructive, still ensconced in the lap of luxury. they are called the children of rich capitalists!

How will you win by making good decisions in communism? Even if you make better decisions than anyone else, the fruits of your work would be evenly distribubted among the general population. So whether u make the right or wrong decisions, it makes no difference in Communism. In fact, a lot of people are smart enough to realize that the best decision you can make is leave to a free country, which is why so many Cubans risk their lives going into Miami. Regarding the dissemination of information in the markets, Bear Stearns was highly leveraged in risky mortgage backed securities. Everyone knew this, even employees. The question is ...given that information, would you put your money in it anyway? Those who considered the securities to be worthless made the right decision by not investing in it . Others lost. That's my point about capitalism, some win and some lose. Your rewards are based on these decisions. I agree with you that there is nothing simple about it, but trust me it works.

sorry Saturnc.....but Dred the Red is heavy into commie socialist school ....but he is not really a bad person

the disagreement i have is that every time someone expresses disagreement with capitalism, the knee-jerk reaction is to suggest that they move to Cuba if they don't like capitalism. the world is not that simple and monochromatic as that . there are countries in which the means of production are more justly structured, the rewards of labor more equitably distributed and people seem to live lives just as happliy as those who live in countries characterised by rampaging exploitation and aggrandisement. look at scandinavian countries: none of them is Cuba, but people receive a fair wage, good schooling, good health care, and , best of all, there are ceilings on CEO compensation. true it is that the tax rates may appear extortionate to us in the USA, but nothing good comes without cost. if you are a member of that group known as rugged individualists, who seek only their own self interest, those who believe in the dictum" every man for himself, God for us all, devil take the hindmost"

contd; then the USA and similarly capitalistic societies will be your cup of tea. if, on the other hand ,you view society as some sort of collective, one in which everyone has value and entitlement to a decent life, you might end up disagreeing with that model. as i have said before, this nonsense about the rewards of hard work is an old saw that rivals the one that says" blessed are the poor, for they shall enter into the kingdom of heaven". when i go to the capital on friday nights, i see all manner of idle rich kids sticking their asses through the sunroofs of daddy's s500 benzes. i havent seen too many of these cars being manned by the haitians who toil in the midday sun on the construction sites!!

Goulet, i remember asking you to hereinafter refer to me as Mr Trotsky. because i will never accept the morality of a system which allows the systematic exploitation of groups of people by other groups. you know what? i feel the same way about Cuba to a lesser degree, because, surely, exploitation exists there too. human nature being what it is, there are no absolutes and perfect scenarios. all that having been said, i take no joy in being a member of a society in which 2.3 milliion people are in imminent danger of having their houses foreclosed upon, yet the authors of the racket, those responsible for widespread destruction of millions of families, walk away with untold millions of golden parachute. that simply cannot be fair, but some people call it "the risks of capitalism". funny how the ill effects of the risks always seem to land upon the poor and weak. it is exactly because man is by nature greedy, thoughtless and selfish, that social engineering has to be directed toward

mitigating the detrimental effects of a deficiency of conscience. if economic might makes right, why not other types of might? what about physical might? why shouldn't some guy just walk up to you at the bus stop and punch your lights out, offering as his excuse "might makes right"?

he has a distant cousin named belial who is even more radically nutty

Sweden with 9 million homogenized white people good example of socialism or Mugabes Zimbabwe what will it be dred?

Goulet, i find it a sad commentary on the human condition when concern for the poor is characterised as radicalism. i know you cannot be serious! this seems to be more of your mischief!

that is the difficulty of implementing socialism that works anywhere.....it is rare

what does "9 million white people" have to do with anything? can you explain that? and i am not a supporter of mugabe either, just in case you assume that>

Ok, let's look at Scandinavian countries.Yes, everyone gets free healthcare, but how long do they have to wait to receive treatment? I was in Sweden some time ago, and people do not even go into the emergency rooms anymore because they know they will have to wait for the government to approve the treatment doctors recommend. And it takes days before this bureaucratic process gets resolved. How about education? It's a free to everyone, which is great, but why should it be free for those who don't care and get bad grades. When students in Norway see that they will get a free ride no matter what, they decide that getting better grades i just not worth trying. Why try to be better if they'll all end up in the same place anyway? In Finland, CEO compensation is almost the same as that of an entry-level engineer. So why would CEOs try to improve their companies? Whether they do well or not, the compensation will be the same. Have u heard of any succesful Finnish companies? I haven't.

sorry but this soon leads to non responsibility for one actions and the blaming of the victim......starting with The New Deal....The New Frontier....The great Society...etc ...all these social programs end up failing miserably...with few exceptions.....remember those socialist countries you hold up as the examples are nothing like Haiti

Ok, let's look at Scandinavian countries.Yes, everyone gets free healthcare, but how long do they have to wait to receive treatment? I was in Sweden some time ago, and people do not even go into the emergency rooms anymore because they know they will have to wait for the government to approve the treatment doctors recommend. And it takes days before this bureaucratic process gets resolved. How about education? It's a free to everyone, which is great, but why should it be free for those who don't care and get bad grades. When students in Norway see that they will get a free ride no matter what, they decide that getting better grades i just not worth trying. Why try to be better if they'll all end up in the same place anyway? In Finland, CEO compensation is almost the same as that of an entry-level engineer. So why would CEOs try to improve their companies? Whether they do well or not, the compensation will be the same. Have u heard of any succesful Finnish companies? I haven't.

right you are saturn...Dred keeps trying to reinvent the wheel....but socialism does not work.....that is a flat tire

everything is the fault of predatory big business.....Crushing the soul of the worker....Down with the corporate types....down with Globalization down with etc. etc. etc. and redistribute the wealth via compensation for war crimes and other misdeeds ......Methinks dred went to the same church as Obama...the cat is out of the bag......this sounds like the" global poverty act" and that nonsense

The imperialist running dogs seem confident that the state in the USA will give away to the US bourgeoisie, the masters of the groveling running dogs, enough billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to weather the current US crisis.

If US capitalism is so strong, why does the state with its printing press have to bailout the failed system?

What would happen if the state refused to make huge cash handouts to the biggest US capitalists, the masters of the servile running dogs?

These imperialists running dogs haven't caught on that the "US crisis," with which the above DT article deals, is the crisis in US capitalism, not US socialism.

The running dogs are barking, growling, howling, dropping spit, and foaming at the mouth over socialism, although it is capitalism in general and US capitalism in particular that lie in a state of crisis.

US capitalism survives so far because the US regime under the dictator George Bush gives the big capitalists who are in trouble hundreds of billions of dollars of welfare at taxpayers' expense while the workers with their children by the millions are being driven from their foreclosed homes into tent cities and into brand-new shantytowns.

here I am in all my bourgeness....eat me....you loser....to the ramparts ,to the ramparts...we have discovered your dirty little secret.....there is no hope for him" Obama " he is circling the drain

The imperialist running dogs are so two-faced.

On the one hand, they tell the worker "you must rely exclusively on your own resources, because the bourgeois state in not responsible for you in any way or to any degree."

On the other hand, these two-faced running dogs tell the US bourgeoisie "Don't worry, we [ the bourgeoisie state] will bail you out of these tough times even if we have to print and give you a trillion dollars. Now, stop worrying."

The two-faced running dogs of the US bourgeoisie resent the idea that they are bound by the principle of consistency.

GC is the kind of imperialist running dog that can't tolerate an unpleasant reality, in any way or to any degree.

Evidently, the crisis in US capitalism is an unpleasant reality; so, GC can't tolerate it.

GC deals with things he can't or refuses to tolerate with escapism. In other words, he runs away in his mind from the reality ... with his long tail dangling or flying behind him as he flees.

GC congenitally goes off topic from everything that's unpleasant to him in search for something soothing.

So, GC, at bottom, is just a coward, running forever from everything unpleasant.

For decades, the US bourgeoisie in the agricultural sector was subsidized or allowed on welfare.

Now, the US bourgeoisie in the financial sector is subsidized or granted welfare.

Still, these malignant hypocrites, better known as imperialist running dogs, preach the dirty lie that the bourgeois state does not support parasites who are rich, some making as much as $100 million in ONE YEAR. These slimy running dogs with foam dropping from their mouths go behind everybody's back and say "Help the rich in a crisis. The rich need your help, too. Don't discriminate against the rich."

wow Belial, we agree on this. The government should not subsize agrcultural sector, nor bail out banks like Bear Stearns who make the wrong decisions. I think any form of government subsidy is wrong, including welfare and social security and other types of welfare given to both the rich and poor. If there was no safety net in our society people would do more to try to get a good job, like go to school or open a business rather than sleeping all day. But no, unemployment or lack of education actually pays off in this society if u want government assistance. This is why social security is bankrupt, and should be completely priviatized. The government should stop trying to exercise control over the markets and let Adam Smith's invisible hand do its work.

good idea try to humor the moron...in case or before he becomes violent....he is supposed to break that medication in half before he takes it...but he likes being delusional....use caution

Notwithstanding all of the lies and slanders of the slime of the Yukon and of other running dogs of imperialism, the FED has the printing presses of the US regime going full blast to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the creme de la creme of the financial sector of the US bourgeoisie, many of whom now get in excess of $100 million a year in their compensation packages.

The Yukon trash and the hag whose request wasn't granted are delighted.

Not one Latin American securities firm or investment bank, not even Slim's in Mexico, participates in the lavish handouts that the creme de la creme of the financial sector of the US bourgeoisie is getting from the filthy "laissez faire capitalist" regime in Washington under Bush.

that is some pretty disingenuous argument , saturn.since when does free education engender laziness and bad grades? i have heard some pretty disjointed attempts at logic in my time, but this ranks at the top of the pile. are you saying that it only happens in socialist states, or is it a natural human response? do you mean that the same nexus will exist if free education is practised in the USA? have there been any surveys done and articles written to substantiate this assertion? what about students whose parents pay massive amounts of money to send them to costly schools, who simply party their lives away? are you saying there are no underachievers in american colleges? and what data do you have to prove that business CEOs in scandinavia do not excel because they cannot make scandalous amounts of compensation? are you aware that there are societies in the world whose value systems extend beyond self aggrandisement? do you realise that some people value honor above money?

why do you believe that 25 million dollars has not led us to Osama Bin Ladin? because the people who know his whereabouts live by a moral code that is immune to sellout. had 25,000 dollars been offered to someone in America, for example, he would have been put to death years ago. and upping the ante to 50 million is considered a bigger insult by these people. as for health care, i rather wait for treatment than have no access at all. and finally, it is pretty slippery on your part to select finland as an example: i have heard of saab, scania, volvo, etc!!!

Dread, you're good at twisting words, but perhaps you are a DREADFUL reader, so I understand. If you read carefully, you will see that my point was not about laziness, it was about incentives. A free-for-all education means that merit plays no role. Capitalism is a meritocracy. It offers incentives which encourage competition and bring the best out us. I am sure that people value honor over money, and that's why immigrants looking for a better life come to the US right? For honor? Will honor put food on the table for your kids to eat ? What I don't understand is if Socialism is so great, why do most people want to come to the capitalist US? I don't see people risking their lives to go to Scandinavia. If capitalism is so bad and prejudiced, how does someone like Oprah or Obama become so succesful in this country? Even when you don't like this great country , it gives you the freedom to stay or leave. Judging from your location, I see you and Belial have made the right choice.

If you rather wait for treatment as in Socialist countries then maybe you should kindly give up your position in this country to someone who really needs it in North Korea, Vietnam, China or Cuba. Don't you think is a bit hypocritical to reject freedom of thought, speech, and religion, but at the same time be in this country? I mean, there must be a reason why you and Belial are here right? Maybe you can explain why. Maybe it's for honor.

one lies and the other swears to it.....you will not live long to see the the barbarians inside the gates take over.....belial there is a bus out of town in 30 minutes ....be under it

saturn, i really should not have initiated any kind of exchange with you, because i realise that you were going to divert the dialogue from reason to rant. where in my post did i reject freedom of thought? wherein did i advocate that i want to give up living in america? stay on focus, man. simply answer the questions i asked in my post with a substantive article or some data. i for one am very disturbed when people hurl drivel recklessly to bolster some ideological preference. my article does not advocate anything more than the need for logic. if you are capable of linear reasoning, we can proceed apace. if not, this exchange is meaningless: at least to me! as to freedom of speech: it also means freedom to express an opinion without thought police such as yourself importuning me to exit!

saturn , would you kindly explain to my untrained mind what the hell is the nexus between capitalism and oprah in particular? did anyone mention anywhere that capitalism excludes black people? who did? maybe you are the dreadful reader, because i never even hinted at that!!!

and oh, you opine that a free for all education leads to a condition wherein merit plays no role. that is not evidenced by the results in Cuba, where education is free for all and they have the highest literacy rate in the western hemisphere, if not the world. no , saturn, what it does is give an opportunity and access to children of indigent parents, who would otherwise be doomed to a life of sub optimal achievement. i am very skeptical when people refer to america as a meritocracy. it makes me feel that they have never been there. sure, saturn, it is a meritorious grade point average that got george bush into Yale. are you aware of the number of children of the aristocracy who have their places reserved at Harvard and Brown from birth? i guess the word nepotism is not in the webster's dictionary?

I'm not the thought police, sorry to disappoint you. But you did say that you prefer socialism over capitalism. Maybe I misunderstood? I will be more than glad to provide you with some scientific surveys. Let's start with this study:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA555_Sweden_Health_Care.html

I suggest a careful look at Figure 2. It's sad how only 50% of all Swedish people have to wait longer than 3 months to get much-needed medical treatment. This is why some prefer to fly over to the US to get the treatment right away and avoid pain for months to come.

I would also take a look at the consequences of lack of competition in Swden due to increased government regulation:

http://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/chices/91.html

I am not bolstering an ideological preference. I am simply trying to explain why every person in the world wants to come to the most capitalist and market driven system in the world. As you will see in those studies, socialism restricts opportunities.

Maybe nepotism exists, but so do opportunities. My hard work and sacrifice (and of course merit) gave me a great Ivy League education. I was born in poverty in DR, and my parents are certainly no Bush family. It's easy to sit around and point fingers, but the opportunities are there. If you don't take advantage then I can't help you buddy. That's what capitalism can do for you. And yes, you can get an education in Cuba, but who are the Cubans getting the top jobs after graduation? have you ever been to Cuba? I HAVE. Those whose families support the so-called revolution are the ones getting the top jobs, and getting preferencial medical treatment. If I was you, I would stop complaining and be grateful my food is not rationed.

Sorry dread, I can't keep signing into this story, but you are more than welcome to set up a discussion page on the facebook. That way we can both get to know each other better and keep this lively discussion going. Let me know.

actually, saturn, i have taken my opportunities, thank you kindly. if you assume that i did not get an education, then you must be hallucinating. but i am not speaking for you nor i. i am speaking for the millions of high school graduates in the usa who end up in the fast food industry because they have no hope of going to college. i am aware of student loans and pell grants and teaching assistant stipends: i put two boys through good schools. however, not too many families from deprived circumstances can afford 25,000 for law school tuition per year. and not everybody is going to get a scholarship, or that would be de facto universal free college tuition. i am not naive enough to believe in the equality of outcomes, but i advocate equality of opportunity. you are not american, and there is a hidden sector of the country with which you will never be familiar. you might have been to an ivy league school, but you will never be an ivy leaguer.

you went to school with kids whose daddies can call the dean and tell him what to do when his kid violates university policy. you, on the other hand, get a summons to the dean's office. get the picture?

i welcome your invitation, saturn. have a great evening.

I haven't said you are not educated, because I can tell you are. You asked for surveys and evidence to prove my point, and I have given you just that. But once again you are playing the victim. The system is always out to get you isn't it? To you other point, I HAVE actually called the dean's office, and as a proud member of my schools's alumni board of trustees I can say that my relationship with the dean is just as good as anybody else's. As an Ivy alumni, And yes, I've had the fortune to be an Ivy Leaguer and enjoy its benefits, even after coming from a humble background. I'm not the type of person that sits back and plays the victim, I actually get off my couch and make it happen. Besides grants, there are things call "loans" that are available to anyone who wishes to attend law school.

sorry to disappoint you, saturn, but you are not an ivy leaguer. you might be an alumnus of an ivy league school, but you are not a member of the class of americans who are regarded as ivy leaguers. you might be able to call the dean's office to say hello or ask for a favor, but you cannot call the dean and give him his marching orders. that is reserved for the stratosphere of american society, the bush and kennedy families, sam walton, etc. these are the fathers of kids who, when they get in trouble, daddy says " i'll make a call". i don't mean to demean you, but you do not fall into that category. i don't know you personally, but if you came from an impoverished dominican family ,as you assert, you don't qualify! and yes, there are loans available for all types of schooling, not only law. however, starting life with a debt of 120,000 is too much of a burden for most poor families.

So your point is that it is impossible to come from an impoverished background and become an "Ivy leaguer". Apparently that automatically disqualifies me no matter what. Last time I checked, Sam Walton lived in a small Oklahoma farm before he founded Walmart and became succesful. Based on your judgement, Sam Walton could never capture the great opportunities this country offers to everyone (even your kids) and therefore he could never be part of the "stratosphere" of American society. Dread, the influence rich American families have today didn't come out of thing air. There is a story behind every sucess in this country, and if you try hard enough and stop victimizing yourself, you too can be part of the great American story, as Barack Obama has been able to do. Try to understand that the white man or fat corporate cats are not out to get you, they're too busy enjoying life and dealing with their own problems.

where do you get this crap from that i am expressing victimology? as an ivy league alumnus you should be able to argue more lucidly. because i do not believe that capitalism offers equal opportunity means that i am acting the victim? i have had the good fortune of being allowed an academic opportunity that is extended to only a few hundred people in the world each year. you seem to believe that i am some downtrodden indigent, blaming the system. i am most decidedly not. but neither do i belong to that group of people who cavalierly offer the statement" i made it, and so can you" that is an oversimplification of how things work. i did not come from poverty, and i did not have to scratch and claw my way through school. however, there are people, who,because of financial considerations, cannot attend college. you remind me of the sons and daughters of the poor who, once they achieve any degree of success, become rabid right wing protagonists, blaming the poor for their failures.

this notion that everyone can do it is simplistic beyond belief. it implies that there are people among us who are either incorrigibly lazy and unmotivated, or just love being failures! there are, if you must know, people whose financial circumstances do not allow them to go to college unless it is free. as poor as you might have been, there are others far worse than you. as to the subject of ivy leaguers: you might be an ivy league alumnus, but do not delude yourself in the belief that you are a member of that hallowed group of elite families that constituted the original ivy league. now the name refers mainly to the athletic conference that bears its name. but rest assured that when some member of the carnegie or mellon or bush families throws a holiday soiree, you will not be on the guest list. these are blue blood wasp types, almost all of them protestants by religion. you know the types whose ancestors came over on the mayflower. if yours did, i stand corrected!!

i just find it very unsettling for you to sermonize to me about the virtues of self assertion and hard work: i find it condescending and reminiscent of the kind of thing one would expect from the likes of Clarence Thomas. contrary to erroneous belief, not everybody receives the same opportunities in america. there is a shortage of just about everything except laundry detergents and breakfast cereal. the rest is essentially rationed, as in the case of college space. guys with the financial wherewithal to afford the extortionate fees will get through the hallowed halls long before some child whose mother cleans toilets for a living while his dad checks off the calendar in attica prison!

as a final aside, people like Noam Chomsky , who continually argue against the ravages of capitalism, are not derelicts sleeping under highway overpasses. and take a look at the joys of capitalism in latin america. i guess you are saying that all the dominicans and haitians, brazilians and colombians living in abject poverty are in that position because they are human chaff, while those in the hummers are beacons of hard work and self assertion.

First, I'm not right wing. I am proud Obama supporter because he understands that anyone in this country can fulfill the promise of this country's founders, no matter what your color is. I understand that financial situation of some families may prevent them from attending expensive schools, but the opportunity to get an education is always there. Colin Powell did not have the money to attend a great school while growing up in the Bronx. Nevertheless, through great sacrifices, he was able to go to school and become the great leader he is today. And yes, you ARE playing the victim once again by suggesting that only "protestants whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower" are "ivy leaguers". I do not need to be protestant or have ancestors who "came over on the Mayflower" to reach power and fortune, and neither do your kids, assuming they don't have your inferiority complex. If they do then there is not much they can look up to as their ambitions can only go as far as they want them to.

No I am refering to the US, not to the rest of the world.

And yes, everyone in this country goes as far as they want to. No one is holding a gun to your head preventing you from doing so, ESPECIALLY when affirmative action allows us to do just that.

dredy deals the slimy race card off the bottom of the deck......as usual

Well, I actually disagree with Clarence Thomas in a lot of issues. If we were talking about Haitians in DR, or Ecuadorians in Peru, or Morocans in Spain then I would say YES, they are obviously at a disadvantage and equality of opportunity is clearly nonexistent. But we're talking about the US buddy. Universities are willing to accept accomplished students of all colors. Affirmative action gives us an extra push to all of us to succeed. You may take offense when I tell you the truth, but some of us take offense when the land which has given us all of our opportunities is constantly being bashed by people who are bitter by the myth of oppression.

sorry but the very reverend Wright has cooked Obamas goose....the truth is beginning to come out ....and it is not pretty

goulet, Rev. Wright is not the one running for president, Obama is. I suggest this reading...

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2249903820080322

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.co....-bill-ayers-problem.html......The other shoe will soon drop

where is the quarter wit belial to join in on these festivities

first of all, i will not reply to Goulet because he states everything in terms of race: it is his fixation. at no time did i introduce race as a factor retarding opportunity in america. there are white people in arkansas and west virginia who are equally as poor as people in harlem: i, like you, live in the USA and know this. secondly, saturn, let me disabuse you of the notion that you are an ivy leaguer. you do not strive to be an ivy leaguer, nor do you achieve ivy league status. you are either born an ivy leaguer or you are not ,in the strictest sense of the term. not because you went to Eton or Harrow makes you royalty. and i wish you would focus your argument within a narrower bandwidth. what are we talking about here: capitalism, or the USA? we started off discussing the merits and demerits of capitalism and socialism, and now the discourse has mutated to the subject of the USA as a land of opportunity. is that how debate is done in the ivy league? i should hope not.

Madame Obama has some serious issues as well...... by the end of the month they will be holding hands with Big Al sharpton and Jesse and Maxine Waters et al...... and it will be curtains for the democrats

i find it very underhanded and disingenuous to assert that i view this issue through a racial lens. show me one sentence that is racially centered in any of the postings in this thread. i defy you, saturn!

as for you Goulet, you should be happy that Belial and i are on this forum. everyone else seems to have abandoned you. then again, if your mind has forsaken you, why shouldn't they?

touche

dred you should be ashamed citing known losers like Chomsky [Hillarys Svengali]in your post

Dread, don't be bitter only because you did not get to chance to attend an Ivy, as I did. Apparently the definition of an Ivy leaguer goes beyond being an alumni of the top American university. I understand that there is a certain feeling of resentment that comes from not being qualified for the top schools and wanting to minimize its importance. May I suggest you look up the definition? I am no royalty, nor do I need to be to be successful in this country, that is the beauty of our capitalist society. But it has given me the opportunity to succeed in whatever I set my sights on. You should understand that not all capitalism is created equal. To think that US capitalism is the same as in Latin America is naive at best. Sorry if the argument was going too fast for you to comprehend, but you had already narrowed discussion when you talked about the people "whose descendants came on the Mayflower". Doesn't that sound like the US to you?
Is this how you raised your kids? as victims?

I didn't say you view it through racial lens, I am just saying that being a minority can actually be an advantage when it comes to getting ahead.

On the other hand, I find it amazing that I am going back and forth between writing on this site and going over the taxes I have to pay by next week. I guess this is the price for capturing investment opportunities this great country has to offer.

i am now beginning to doubt that you went to any kind of college, let alone an ivy league school. if you did, you could not have attended any classes pertaining to logic. i have no envy nor resentment for you, so do not annoy me with your bombast. i was accepted to both oxford and cambridge, and also the four inns of law in england, was a rhodes scholar candidate and received scholarships reserved for very few people in the world annually. i am sorry that you have a limited understanding of american society. sadly, my mother has passed away: having been a midwife to some of america's foremost aristocrats, she would have been better able to educate you on that subject. apparently you revel in the joys of reminding us incessantly that you are an ivy league alumnus, as if that makes you anything special. i have friends who attended high school with me, who applied to the same undergrad school as i did. they were rejected, only to end up at Cornell. i do not need to look up the definition

of ivy league: i know what it means. and you are not a part of the sector of american society regarded as ivy league. you may get away with telling that to someone in barahona, but try to remember that i live in the USA.

as an aside, saturn, members of the ivy league NEVER declare publicly how much money or education they have. they have a certain understated savoir faire that sets them apart. it is all a part of their social genre: it is the nouveau riche who prattle on incessantly about what they have achieved " by hard work" . a true ivy leaguer would never tell people that they achieved their position by sheer dint of hard work, having clawed their way up from the bottom. true ivy leaguers are not born at the bottom! graduates from an ivy league school yes: members of ivy league families,no. lastly, real ivy league families dont " go over their taxes", fretting over money. that is done for them by some wall street tax attorneys!

You are free to believe what you choose to, and I do not need to state my credentials or prove to you what I have attained through hard work and sacrifice. Each of us know what we are capable of accomplishing. My point was simply that ANYONE has the same opportunity I had. I don't come from "aristocracy", nor was I even middle class before coming to the US. Yet, this country was willing to give me a chance. I don't blame the system, I blame the individual. I don't care whether your mom cleans toilets or your dad works in prison. The opportunities are available, and there are plenty of such examples in our society. I can either CHOOSE to take advantage of capitalism, or like you, I can just sit back, blame aristocrats, and conform to my status. Unlike you, I find no use in lamenting the supposedly lack of opportunities in capitalism. I am glad my children will some day grow up in a country where they have the same opportunities as anybody else. Your kids will some day be glad as well.

dred...stop this whining and complaining and go make some money and give it to Bill Gates.....if its good enough for Warren its good enough for you

LOL. Clearly your definition of an Ivy leaguer differs from mine. Somehow you seem to believe that Ivi League alumni are a mysterious society which is committed to the secrecy of credentials. I report my own investments because I can do it faster than anybody else. I don't need attorneys to do it for me, as I have not been involved in transactions which would be legally scrutinized. Moreover, your poor imagination has created this so called "Ivy league family" ,which resembles aristocracy. Aristocracy is not the same as Ivy Leaguer. And being that you are not one, how would you know how such "Ivy Leaguers" (used in its proper definition) are supposed to behave? As I said previously, I am no royalty. But I am not willing to make generalizations about a certain group of individuals, as you have. All i can say is that you can rest assured, your children have the same opportunities as anybody else in this country. This country isn't perfect, but it surely is more perfect than others.

A reading suggestion for you dred: Free To Choose by Milton Friedman. Given your credentials (which are clearly doubtable) you should have no problem in following the author.

where in God's name did you get the idea from that i have a plight which i blame on anyone? you have this asine notion that i sit in a chair all day lamenting my misfortune and blaming it on the system. you expressed pity for me that i did not have your opportunities to attend an ivy league school. that is the only reason why i bothered to trot out my credentials. i am sure that my academic credentials are more formidable than yours. and do not express any sympathetic hopes for my children. both have been to major european universities, on scholarship,thank you.unlike you, i did not grow up in poverty, and was exposed to first class educational institutions from the beginning. i never went to public school, and always had access to the best opportunities. maybe that is why i can mount a focused argument which does not wander off into endless drivel and uncertainty. besides, i supervised a department which was populeted by a graduate from Brown: he was among the dumbest guys i ever met

so ivy league,schmivy league. Harvard has nothing over Stanford and MIT, in their fields of specialty.

So basically you did not grow up in poverty, never went to public school, had all the opportunities you wished, and have no experiences whatsoever with how poor people like myself can succeed in a capitalist US. So what would a person like YOU know about opportunities. Don't you think that someone with my experience would be more credible in arguing whether or not everyone has the same opportunities under capitalism? If you've always had everything given to you, then you can't possibly pretend to understand what it means to come from nothing to everything under capitalism.

you can doubt my credentials all you want. and i will not bother discuss the subject of ivy leaguer with you any more. if you believe you are one, and it makes you feel important, then be my guest. paint it on your car, for God's sake. and as to your assertion that i ought not know how ivy leaguers behave, because i am not one: i wouldn't expect such nonsense from an ivy league man. after all, i am not a cat either, but i have a fair to middling idea of how they behave!

are you saying that people who have had opportunities in life do not understand those who don't? it is precisely because i realise that not everyone can have the opportunities that i have had which makes me argue for a system which is more inclusive, such as free education. i believe that not only people who have had the genetic good fortune that i had should be able to attend school and university. so we have taken the scenic route back to the start of my postulate

Sorry if my arguments seem a bit not focused to you. Unlike you, I am focusing on doing more important things than trying to argue already well-known facts.

I can't help to feel sorry for your kids. They grew up on this? LOL. No matter what university they attended, if they think of themselves as victims they will surely not get very far. I just hope that they have not inherited the same resentment over capitalism that you have. But I understand, resentment can be a consequence of jealousy.

Great generalizations dread, I also know how people like you behave and how they seem to think the system is out to get them.

In conclusion....don't like it? Either leave, or get used to it, because capitalism in the US is here to stay. Thank God ! Consider this debate finished oh so educated dread !

a course in linguistics might be helpful to you, saturn. you don't seem to be able to make the distinction between disagreement and resentment. i may disagree with a judge's ruling, but that does not mean i resent the law! why do i bother? this is all too esoteric for you, anyway. why don't you just go ahead and hang your college flag for all to see, and honk the horn of the bimmer all the way to the bank? maybe some clever electronics whiz kid can fabricate you a horn which beeps" look at me; i am a success, and you're not".

hey saturn, now that Goulet has drank his cup of hot cocoa and metamucil and tucked himself in for the night, i suggest you retire too. he who fights and runs away, will live to fight another day. you seem to have worn down a bit. even Goulet has more stamina, even though he rarely makes sense. good night, sweet princes.

wait: i didn't see that one. you call me oh so educated dread? weren't you the guy who started off telling us that you are an IVY LEAGUE MAN? i tell you man, it is past your bedtime!

Here's Business Week's take of the Bear Stearn thing.

"In retrospect, the investment strategies of Bear Stearns (BSC) executives were anything but prudent. By loading up the bank's balance sheet with toxic, mortgage-backed securities, they lost the confidence of lenders and clients—and on Mar. 16, control of the firm. But in the years leading up to Bear's collapse, top executives made tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars on the earnings that were puffed up by those short-sighted decisions."
http://images.businessweek.com/ss....rstearns/index_01.htm?chan=search

Latin Americans ... workers, middle class, and capitalists ... were important as both "lenders and clients" of Bear Stearns as well as investors, especially pension funds and central banks, which poured billions of dollars into the pockets of "top executives [who] made tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars."

Suckers shouldn't have fallen for all the trashy bourgeois ideology.

In Latin America, Bear Stearn, among other things, was deep into shylock [loan sharking] consumer financing operations and the lead-firm that administered the investment side of the implementation of CAFTA.

Bear modelled itself on the dead Soloman Brothers firm with its concentration on mortgage-backed securities and, to a lesser extent, on Citigroup with shylocking consumers.

Like Solomon, Bear was infested with PhDs in math, physics, and statistics ... most of whom were rightwing scum out of the Harvards, Yales, Princetons, Sanfords and Chicagos ... who pretended omniscience in all things financial.

Mid-level people were getting ... not "making" ... anywhere between $25 and $75 million.

The bourgeois knows how to loot their suckers who worship and exalt "successful" capitalists.

Bear Stearn and Lehman Bro's. screwed up the nice mortgage-backed securities racket when they used the adjustable rate provision in mortgages to loot the homeowners, increasing the monthly payments anywhere from 300% to 500%, knowing that the adjustment was mathematically untenable even with the possibility of refinancing.

Given the average growth in personal income in the USA, adjustments in homeowner monthly mortgage payments somewhere between 50% to about 100% are mathematically feasible.

These adjustables were used as underlying assets for securities that promised junk-bond returns of 9% or 11%, which exceedingly popular in Latin America where Bear was robust.

Bear organized its own hedge funds to market the junk and bought other hedge funds which remain nominally independent of Bear.

Bear is capitalism at its best and brightest. There's more to come. The bourgeoisie will never abandon or leave its suckers alone.

The point was made with matchless lucidity by the "Enron" scandals.

The capitalist is lying thief and parasite whose "success" arises, more often than not, from accounting and securities fraud.

Bear extends "Enron" on a grand scale, because Bear demonstrates that no matter how financially and economically literate you are, you can still be had.

You money depends on capitalists who are ... and have always been ... incurably dishonest.

One of the hedge funds set up by the Bear to market its junk was the "Bear Stearns' High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund."

Once the suckers saw the pretty name, they lined up to be fleeced. After all, this hedge fund was "enhanced" and "high-grade" and, finally, "structured." Wow!

The MINIMUM amount to open an account fund was $250,000.

Bear stuffed the hedge fund with low-quality mortgage-back securities ... that is, based on mortgages with adjustable rates ... at or above ... 300% for monthly mortgage payments which Bear knew were beyond the reach and income of homeowners who signed the mortgages.

But the pretty name of the hedge fund and the infinite prestige of the financial bourgeoisie ... aka "geniuses ... are what turned the suckers on.

What kind of drugs do you guys do to make you conjure up all these wierd ideas and dumb theory?....is it Peyote?....PCP ?come on tell us

Goulet, i will not let you slide with cheap theatrics. if Belial is wrong, get on the phone , wake up saturn ,and disprove his statements. you may not like his style, but you have to like his seasoning( a line purloined by me from the song Uptown Rebel)

the cheapest

What are you smoking dread? The only reason I mentioned the Ivies was to show you how someone like me, coming from the poorest neighborhoods of DR, has the opportunity to get the same education as the Kennedys. Because that is what US capitalism offers, equality of opportunities. If this wasn’t true there wouldn’t be an Oprah, or an Obama, or a Sam Walton, or a Bill Gates. Or maybe you think these are just outliers right? LOL. Maybe this time you can actually stay in the topic and not go on tangents.

As to Belial the Commie.. It’s easy to copy and paste newsclips to point out flaws of the financial system without talking about the loans that people like you have stopped paying. It’s also easy (and hypocritical) to sit back and criticize the system (that apparently seems to be keeping you down) while at the same time reaping the benefits of such system. You have a pension account or an IRA right? If you don’t like the system I suggest you then keep your savings under your mattress.

"As to Belial the Commie.. It’s easy to copy and paste newsclips to point out flaws of the financial system without talking about the loans that people like you have stopped paying. It’s also easy (and hypocritical) to sit back and criticize the system (that apparently seems to be keeping you down) while at the same time reaping the benefits of such system. You have a pension account or an IRA right? If you don’t like the system I suggest you then keep your savings under your mattress."

00

As for saturnc15, the cappie.

Cappie, Bear's collapse isn't a "flaw in the system," rather it's a failed system that the state has to prop up with cash givaways or system will collapse totally. Bernanke has admitted it.

"without talking about the loans that people like you have stopped paying."

People like you, i.e., philistines, may not be able to calculate that personal income of homeowners won't grow 500% in 3 or 4 years as would their mortgage payments, but Bear could.

What is Bear Stearns refused to make the loans available? Then they would immediately be called racist and exclusive for not making these loans available to low income individuals. The loans were available, and it was up to the individuals to commit to the payments and variations in interest rates. No one was holding them at gunpoint. Everyone in this country has the freedom to choose.

Let me break it down for you Commie….Throughout the past century, communists like you and dread promised prosperity, equality, and security, but delivered nothing but poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery. Do you happen to know why socialism has consistently failed? Socialism doesn’t work because it isn’t consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives. Free healthcare, free education, free housing, etc. means a system free of individual responsibilities. Capitalism, on the other hand, has worked. Why? Because it is a system based on the certainty that incentives matter. If your decisions are better than the poor decisions of others, you will reap the rewards. Bear Stearns made poor decisions, and so did the people who got these loans. That is why they are all justly paying the price.

Bear was not responsible for calculating the "homeowner income", they're not magicians. The responsibility of people getting loans should be to know what their limits are. Bear was just there to make the loans available and provide them with the same opportunity as anybody else.

saturn 15 ....what a guy ...you are a hero .....you whupped it on old "Dred the Red" and his quarter wit cousin...".old cut and paste"....they are sqeeling like scalded dogs...and will return to where ever to lick their wounds....VIVA CUBA LIBRE

"Bear was not responsible for calculating the "homeowner income", they're not magicians."

0000

Unlike you cappie, Bear can be presumed to have a knowledge of basic economics. The personal income by socio-economic group is as common an economic concept as gross domestic product or unemployment rate or trade balance. Everybody in business or economics is familiar with the concept of personal incomes and keeps up with monthly reports on personal income.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income

Workers ... that is, homeowners ... are lucky in their personal income grows between 5% to 10% during a year.

So, to abrubtly adjust monthly mortgage payments somewhere between $400% or 500% would snatch the home from the workers even if the homeowners have access th refinancing.

Adjustments of between 50% and 100% are reasonable and securities based on these maotgages are still sound today, if the worker can refinance periodically.

Saturnc15, philistine, can't you count?

i am done talking to you , saturn. you are so hopelessly naive it is like talking to an infant. you really believe that capitalism is this wonderful, benign system that rewards the good, hard working guys and penalises the lazy. well, go peddle that crap to the ivy league graduates in america who have lost their jobs to some guy in islamabad called Mamnoon, because he will work for less. this is after that guy spent 150,000 on college tuition and still has to pay back the loan. i refuse to have any dialogue with some guy like you who is so ecstatic that he has a job and can buy a plasma tv that he regards all victims of capitalism as bums. unlike you , not everyone is an alumni of the ivy league; incidentally, that should read ALUMNUS, saturn, not alumni. you might be full of yourself, but you are still one person. alumnus, singular, alumni plural. sheesh! 4 years in an ivy league school and still making elementary school mistakes. in the real world, where people are different,

sticks and stones

there is the concept of superior knowledge.if you believe that the 2.3 million people who are about to have their houses foreclosed upon made " bad decisions", and the real estate agents are just benign, wholesome choir boys, you should be committed to a mental institution. hey, if guys like Lou Dobbs, with whom i don't always agree, see the whole affair as a crime of what he describes as "capitalism unbridled", that is good enough for me. i will defer to his opinion anytime, as opposed to your genuflective assessment of a system which is just as rotten as socialism. as i have said before: guys like you see sweat shops and slave wages as good business decisions. i tell you guys again: i have met many like you in my time. things are going well for you now, and you feel invulnerable and all powerful. but never laugh at a passing hearse! i have worked for fortune 500 companies that paid us a great bonus one year, and the following christmas 60% of the workforce in my department

So is that what you do when you can't prove your point? resort to stupid spelling errors? LOL. Way to go dread ! you impress me. I actually give more credit to Belial for sticking to the issue.This isn't a final exam, this is a forum.

If I was working and living in a place I didn't like, I would go one I actually do. Why are you and Benial living in a capitalist country? If you really believe that socialism is better then why aren't you in Sweden or Cuba? You still haven't answered any of my questions, you just go on tangents.
And I don't think people are bums, I just think that if I made it without even being a US citizen, then there is no reason for anybody else, ESPECIALLY US citizens, to not be succesful in this society. If you are not succesful don't blame the system, blame yourself.

was being ushered out the door. enjoy it while you can, saturn. maybe one day fortune will not be so kind to you, and you will join the long line of humanity on the unemployment line. but then again, it will be your fault, just like all those auto workers in michigan!!

"You can only go as far as you wish" -- Barack Obama

"Bear was not responsible for calculating the "homeowner income", they're not magicians."

0000

Cappie, there is nothing magical about these calculations or the ability to read reports in which others make the calculations.

The next report on personal income will be released March 28 at 8:30 AM. The report will cover changes in personal income for the month of Feb. The consensus of about 60 economists in that personal income grew in Feb. only a paltry 0.3 percent. In Jan., personal income also grew 0.3 percent.

http://briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

Philistine, wake up. You've been had.

Ok. And how many of those Auto workers in Michigan made the decision to get a college degree? Unemployment figures nationwide are near 5%. But if you break it down between college grads and HS grads you see that unemployment for college grads is only 2%, while for HS grads is near 9%. If you make the effort to go to college, then clearly you are guarantee almost full employment. but even if you are unemployed, this capitalist country is so great that it actually gives you unemployment benefits for you to get back on your feet. If you don't like the books I've recommended, maybe a movie will do: The Pursuit of Happyness.

saturn, instead of wasting your homespun homilies on me, why dont you go call together a group of steel workers in pennsylvania, add some auto workers from michigan, some textile and garment workers from the eastern seaboard, some shoe manufacturers from all over, then add to that all the guys from RCA, the toy manufacturers, the watchmakers, and all the other people who have lost their livelihoods, and tell them that they " can go only as far as they wish"?then tell all the people who lost their money with enron that it was because they made bad decisions. you are young: one day , when the elation of relative success wears off, and you become a little less self absorbed, you will understand that some people do not simply become rich by hard work: they do it by exploitation, skullduggery and scams. the victims did not make bad decisions, as you say. go tell the seamstresses working for pittances in indonesia, who have to ask for permission to go to the restroom, that they are poor

"Bear was not responsible for calculating the "homeowner income", they're not magicians."

0000

The report is prepared monthly by The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Commerce.

Cappie, here's another statement of the concept of personal income.

"Personal income measures income from all sources. The largest component of total income is wages and salaries, a figure which can be estimated using payrolls and earnings data from the employment report. Beyond that, there are many other categories of income, including rental income, government subsidy payments, interest income, and dividend income. Personal income is a decent indicator of future consumer demand, but it is not perfect. Recessions usually occur when consumers stop spending, which then drives down income growth. Looking solely at income growth, one may therefore miss the turning point when consumers stop spending."
http://briefing.com/Investor/Publ....ndars/EconomicReleases/income.htm

because they don't wish to be rich. and, in the meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed that the axe does not chop your head off too!

Commie, citing income figures from January and February is useless when you consider that the housing bubble started in 2003. Everyone was doing so well. I didn't hear you complain then. But now that it has finally burst, and people that agreed to these loan standards are in trouble, then you blame the system. Which way is it Belial? you can't have it both ways. You can't expect everyone to win or lose every time. This isn't Cuba.

I was poor too. The difference is that I didn't lamented my poverty by blaming the system. I changed my own situation thanks to the opportunities capitalism provides. If I lose my job then I will apply for another one. It's not my fault most of unionists didn't go to college.

saturn, you get sillier by the second! do you believe college is for everyone? what the heck does being a college graduate have to do with steel workers? you think a guy should get his PhD from Brown, then go operate a smelter? and how many college grads do you think are getting fleeced in the sub prime racket? you really think that going to college is the be all and end all of life? stay smug, my friend. i am a lot older than you, have seen more than you, and know more than you. one day you will become my age, and maturity will award you insight!

Yes dreads, you already mentioned that. The system is mean, and cruel. It exploits people and only favors the aristocracy. That is why Sam Walton, Oprah, Obama, Colin Powell, Warren Buffet, etc. etc. were able to succeed right? Because they were all born in aristocratic homes.

By the way, those who believe that this passage of the discussion is off topic, you're mistaken.

We're talking about the cause of the "US crisis."

Saturnc15, and the like, blame "irreponsible homeowners" who didn't keep up with their house payments for the "crisis," repeating the false propaganda line US capitalist media which exculpates the financial sector of the US bourgeoisie.

I, on the other hand, blame the financial sector of the bourgeoisie which set up millions of homeowners in a scam to make a trillion-dollar killing by securities fraud. You see, when investors rushed to buy those rip-off mortage-backed securities because they promised 9% to 11% returns where sound securities of the same kind promised only 6% to 8%, the investors were being scammed because Bear knew that 400% to 500% jack-ups in the underlying mortgage payments were impossible.

quotes saturn" Everyone was doing so well" who is this ' EVERYONE", Saturn?

I don't think college is for everyone. But if it's not for you, then accept the consequences and stop complaining. We all know that statistics are different for college grads and dropouts. That is a fact. If it didn't matter you wouldn't have gone to college right? While skilled jobs are in demand, the unskilled labor market is tight.

EVERYONE means EVERYONE. All those homeowners who got the loans were more than happy that these loans were available to them. Companies were happy because liquidity was more than enough to fund people even with sub-par credit scores. I blame BOTH. Both the people making $20,000 a year thinking they can afford million dollar homes just as much as mortgage companies that allowed them to proceed with the purchases.

I'm sure that Bear Stearns would have been subjected with thousands of discrimination lawsuits had they NOT made the loans available. So let's get real.

Oh wait..I have an idea...let's make everyone earn the same. Let's also nationalize all fortune 500 companies. THAT WAY, there will be no more problems. We'll all be equal and we'll all be happy forever !

You stilll haven't answered my question. If you don't like capitalism, why are you in the US? You're more than welcome to go somewhere else. Maybe you can entertain me with your reasoning, if there is any.

poor, dear,saturn! even you should know that there is such a thing as qualifying for a mortgage. if you don't qualify, you just don't! you and your fellow travellers cannot file a class action suit for discrimination, because it has no merit. any trial lawyer can tell you that. the blame lies more with the lenders than with the borrowers in this case, because of the concept of " superior knowledge".pay attention, saturn: you may actually learn something if you open your mind!!

"EVERYONE means EVERYONE. All those homeowners who got the loans were more than happy that these loans were available to them."

oooo

The mortgages or, if you prefer, the loans were presented with a degree of obfuscation that home buyer had to rely on the word of the lying capitalist or his servile hired help.

Many outside lawyers and accountants couldn't unravel the batch of documents that scam artists in the financial sector laid before the home buyers.

Most people are happy when they defrauded because material facts have been in some way concealed or misrepresented.

i just love it when some immigrant invites me to leave his adopted home because he disagrees me with. saturn, leave those importunes to the americans, please.

Who said you need your argument to have any merit to file a class action suit? That is not up to you, that's up to a judge. Last time I checked people were suing McDonalds for making them fat. Where is personal responsibility and freedom of choice?

Well, I am lucky enough to be an immigrant who is now a US citizen. As a US citizen, I have all the rights in the world to ask you that question, which by the way, YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED.

following up on what you said, Belial, i am quite sure that ,as we speak, trial lawyers are conjuring up lawsuits against mortgage brokers on the principle of DETRIMENTAL RELIANCE. just wait and see!

So as an American.... WHY ARE YOU HERE???

saturn, you bore me! this is like debating a child.

LOL. Keep evading the question dread. Great job.

Lawsuits will go nowhere. Business is done in a voluntary basis in this country. If you didn't like the loans you didn't have to take them.

Again, it's easy to sit on your couch and blame others for your own mistakes. I'm sure that's what your kids did when they were 2 or 3 years old.

wow. What is all this bickering??!! 158 comments on this article, this must be a record.

gorilla 32 ....well this is how it is ....saturn is wacking" Dred the Red" and his imbecile cousin belial with the pinata stick real hard..they will be voting republican when he gets through with them

Welcome gorill. Apparently some people think capitalism is evil, even though they seem to be enjoying its benefits. These are the same people who would like to see Hipolito back in power in DR. Back to 300% inflation and back to the nationalization of free press. The same people that ignore all the progress we have made under Leonel, even though they have never even lived in the country.

Capitalism isn't evil, but it definitely has deficiencies. Hippo back in power NEVER AGAIN.

"following up on what you said, Belial, i am quite sure that ,as we speak, trial lawyers are conjuring up lawsuits against mortgage brokers on the principle of DETRIMENTAL RELIANCE. just wait and see!"

0000

Forensic Accounting, Credit Risk, Securitization & Compliance Experts
http://www.crowechizek.com/crowe/....;gclid=CJikgIjlo5ICFQFfxgod23nRRQ

Reuters: Stunned Bear Stearns investors bring legal claims
http://www.reuters.com/article/id....0080317?virtualBrandChannel=10112

Most the litigants, so far, are other capitalists and well-to-do middle class types who have been cleaned out by cheating elements in the financial sector of the US bourgeoisie.

People, like saturnc15, are so servile and slave-like to the US capitalists that these people would sooner believe that God or his son committed fraud against them than a multimillionaire in the US financial sector.

OK Belial, so if the system is so evil, why are you still here? lol.

saturn has a good point. Belial, you and dreadlocks seem to be critical of capitalists. But yet, you are enjoying the benefits of living in a capitalist economy. That seems hypocritical to me. Maybe you can come here to DR and I can take your spot there :)

Thank you ! That is what I've been asking to them, but they seem to not know why they are here, even though they don't like it so much. Apparently we're holding them at gunpoint.

his spot there has not been dug yet

""following up on what you said, Belial, i am quite sure that ,as we speak, trial lawyers are conjuring up lawsuits against mortgage brokers on the principle of DETRIMENTAL RELIANCE. just wait and see!"

0000

One of the top law firms on the plaintiff side is Mark& Associates

http://www.bearstearnsinvestors.com/

The philistine is correct when he says that hundred of thousands of scam victims have tough cases to win because filthy GOP judges appointed by Bush and other reactionaries in the White House despise the rule of law.

These judges side ideologically everytime with the GOPs in favor of the doctrine of dog-eat-dog capitalism or, more politely, laissiz faire capitalism which means fraud is the main way the bourgeoisie should do business.

These judges believe with all of their hearts in Bush's idea that "The US Constitution is nothing but a Goddamn piece of paper."

I've given the link for this quote 100 times in this and other threads, so I won't bother now.

"laissiz faire capitalism which means fraud is the main way the bourgeoisie should do business"

My french isn't perfect, but I know enough to know that the phrase "Laissez-Faire" literally means to "Let Do". In other words, a to allow for the VOLUNTARY free exchange of goods and services. Lawsuits won't fail because of your judge conspiracy theory. They will fail because both the loan applicants AND mortgage companies accepted the terms of the mortgage contracts. Their signature is in the contracts, indicating they fully agreed to prooced with the VOLUNTARY transactions. If they did not like it they didn't have to sign.

Forgive me Belial, but I will give this round to saturn.

"My story is only possible in America. It is the story of my grandfather, who marched in Patton’s Army; and my father, who crossed the globe to be a part of the dream that my grandfather defended. An America that secures its people, and stands as a light of hope for the world"

-- Barack Obama --

Belial, when you are done with Marx's manifesto maybe you should read "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman.

" Lawsuits won't fail because of your judge conspiracy theory."

0000

I said they will be tough to win, not that the lawsuits will necessarily fail.

It's no "conspiracy theory" that Bush said "The US Constitution is nothing but a Goddamn piece of paper."

It's no "conspiracy theory" that Bush apointed every single federal judge -- supreme court, appeals court, and distriict court -- during the last 7 years.

It's no "conspiracy theory" that Bush appoints judges who believe that "The US Constitution is nothing but a Goddamn piece of paper."

It's no "conspiracy theory" that it is tough to win before a judge who does not apply the law, but who rather applies his filthy, rightwing, slimy bourgeois ideology.

"Belial, when you are done with Marx's manifesto maybe you should read "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman."

oooo

Friedman, the aposle of laissiz faire capitalism and the late resident idiot of economics in Chicago, the inapt inventor of neo-liberalism. Dr. Friedman, the fool who said close all the schools for the workers, close all the hosipals for the workers, throw the pensions of all the workers' into the zig-zags of the stock market, privatize motherhood, childhood, water, and everything else of value?

"Above all else, by children, pay the foreign debt you owe to US imperialism," the pious Milton urged.

I read this incompetent and I'm familiar with calamities that his theories have caused in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Right, such as the economic boom in Chile thanks to his advise to the country. Last time I checked, Chile was one of the most properous nations in Latin America.

"when you are done with Marx's manifesto maybe"

oooo

The serious student is never "done" with this supreme masterpiece.

Supreme master piece?? lol. I suppose that's why communism has prevailed over capitalism right? And that's why you are in the US, as supposed to China or Cuba.

Belial, you can't possibly be serious. To saturn's point, I don't see people stampeeding to get into Cuba, or North Korea. What you see is quite the opposite. You have to ask yourself..why is that? Why are people willing to risk their lives for the American dream, and not for the Cuban dream? or the Chinese dream?

Right on gorill. May I add, Marx lived in times when unions didn't exist. Labor laws, such as the minimum wage, pension, medical benefits, etc. did not exist at the time Marx produced this so-called "masterpiece". It seems that Belial is stuck in 1844.

"I don't see people stampeeding to get into Cuba"

0000

The migration from Mexico to USA is a thousand times, at least, greater than the migration from Cuba.

If 1000 Mexican swim across the Rio Grande to USA during a day, they get 1000 times LESS publicity than 10 Cubans who sail to Florida during same day.

Thus, the brainwashing manipulation of the US capitalist media makes the 10 Cubans look like a " stampede" and the 1000 Mexicans look like a normal flow.

Plus, if US citizens "stampede" to Cuba, they're subject to up to 10 years in a US prison for "stampeding" or, in other words, traveling without Bush's permission.

If a stampede wouldn't result from the restoration of the liberty of US citizens, why throw US citizens into prison or fine them up to $250,000 for stampeding?

This week over 100 emigres returned to Cuba from 30 countries in an effort to normalize a stampede to the island, notwithstanding the blockade and spying of the US imperialists.

"I don't see people stampeeding to get into Cuba"

0000

Last year, over 193,000 Cuban emigres stampeded to Cuba from various countries. One of the purposes of the gathering last week in Havana was to increase the size of the stampede to 500,000 a year.

Tens of thousands of Cuban Americans and non-Cuban-Americans who are US citizens want to move to Cuba either despite its proletarian democracy and socialist economy .... or because of them ... to spend their retirement years, but the threat of repression by the US regime obstructs them from fulfilling their understandable desire to spend the rest of the lives in Cuba.

If you don't see a stampede to Cuba, then don't support the repressive iron curtain that prevents the stampede.

lol. That makes no sense Belial. I don't see you living in Cuba, you're more than welcome to do so. You're now cornered.

stuck in 1844 an in another galaxy.....far far away

Belial will be dissappointed when he wakes up and sees that he is actually living under capitalism. He'll be surprised to see how much he likes making his own decisions, as supposed to having someone else making the decisions for him.

most prosperous in LA thanks to dirty name ..........Pinochet

"don't support the repressive iron curtain that prevents the stampede"

Ok Belial, we'll take away all these imaginary conspirancies just so that you can move to Cuba. We'll be waiting for you back here buddy.

saturn is beating belial and "Dred the Red " beating them like an Iraqi prisoner,beating them like a baby seal.....like a red headed step child....like a giant Pinata

Wow Belial, are you seriosuly suggesting that Americans would be willing to move to Cuba? I am seriosuly questioning your judgment now.

"I don't see you living in Cuba, you're more than welcome to do so"

0000

I believe we're little off topic, but I'll go along for a while.

I'm a US revolutionary, and my political and ideological imperative is winning the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in USA and, secondly, solidarity with the workers of the world in their heroic and glorious struggle against US imperialism.

I do my duty. Please forgive me.

But I'm not opposed to a stampede to Cuba. Rather I support it. For this reason, I contribute to the legislative struggle within the USA to remove the obstacles to this stampede.

An estimated 45,000 US citizens illegally visit Cuba every year, if such trips weren't a crime, perhaps as many as a 1,000,000 US citizens would visit Cuba every year.

In my opinion, this would constitute a stampede, one which would be good for both the USA and for Cuba, because US citizens will see with their own eyes the imperialist lies about Cuba.

cuba tropical gulag with palm trees and the stassi wear Hawian shirts.....how charming

"Wow Belial, are you seriosuly suggesting that Americans would be willing to move to Cuba? I am seriosuly questioning your judgment now. "

0000

To test you hypothesis and mine, all we have to do is to stop sending US citizens and legal residents to prison if they make the move.

I'm game. Are you? Let's remove the iron curtain.

Belial, have you even been to Cuba? I went once, and I can already see you in Cuba.....

Belial: "I'm hungry, let me buy something to eat"
Store guy: Sorry, the government hasn't approved food distribution until tomorrow.
Belial: "But I am sooo hungry man, do it for a comrade, for a fellow Proletariat!"
Store guy: Sorry, all the food has already been distributed. There is no more until tomorrow.

The next day...

Belial: Ok, can I get some food now?
Store guy: Ok here it is... (piece of bread falls on Belial's hands)
Belial: Ok, let me get some more.
Store guy: Sorry comrade, but others have to eat too.
Belial: What? But I will starve if all I eat today is this little piece of bread.
Store guy: comrade, we're all equal. we're all eating the same as you.

Suddenly Raul Castro comes...."Give me my food now !!!"
Store guy: Of course ! (100 pounds of food is given to Raul)
Belial: but how about me???
Raul: How dare you !

Belial is executed the next day.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Castro gave the people three things and he took away three things he gave them sports ....medicine....and education.......and he took away..breakfast ,lunch and dinner

saturnc15,

Your full off it !

saturnc15,

If that was true, already the regime was gone, remember, If smart, food its the only thing that will revolt any population.

Perception, you have the right to disagree. After all, you TOO live in our great capitalist country. It IS true. The only reason the regime isn't gone is because once someone disagrees then the person is considered a "traitor" to the revolution and they would be imprisoned, tortured, and put to death. And by the way, food does not revolt populations, inflation does. The Cuban government has artificially kept food prices down by slaving poor farmers.

Let farmers demand a fair wage and push prices up. The regime would be toast if it wasn't for the slavery of these poor farmers.

Saturnc15, your poetry ... if that's what it is ... is worse than your prose.

Apparently, you don't know that in 2007, over 2,000,000 foreigners visited Cuba and very few complained about the food, either its quantity or its quality.

To put the 2,000,000 tourists to Cuba in 2007 in a Caribbean perpective, I'll let you know that the Dominican Republic was number one in the Caribbean in attracting foreigners in 2007 with 3,000,000 visitors. But last month, a Canadian family of eight came down sick in the DR and had to be rolled off a plane during an emergency stop in Ft. Lauderdale, perhaps due to some chicken on which they feasted Punta Cana.

Belial, again, obviously you have never been to Cuba. Do you really think that foreigners are treated the same as the locals? You must be dreaming. Foreigners bring dollars. I remember going to an ice cream place in Havana called "La bendita". The line was long, but because I had dollars to pay with, I was skipped to the front of the line and treated with much courtesy. That courtesy was not extended to locals.

Belial, it's true what saturn is saying. Local Cubans are not even allow to visit the resorts that are otherwise open to foreigners.

cuba is curiosity tourism ...low ball tourism ,that is rubber chicken buffet.... drink till you puke for the lowest level all inclusive el cheapo and you know it senor beli button...even cheapy Canadians dont go back

Even hospitals are different. Some hospitals only allow the commanders in the revolution and foreigners. The rest are open to the general Cuban population.

of course he knows it do not humor the moron...he has had this argument 100 times ....he is like rainman...Judge wopner 4 oclock Judge wopner 4 oclock

"Do you really think that foreigners are treated the same as the locals?"

0000

No.

Have you ever seen how Americans grovel before UK tourists?

belial has never been off the grounds of the home where he is confined

"Even hospitals are different. Some hospitals only allow the commanders in the revolution and foreigners. The rest are open to the general Cuban population."

0000

Did you see Michael Moore's "Sicko?"

It showed the quality of Cuban health care that Cuban citizens receive because there where US patients who accompanied Moore were treated.

It was a very fine Cuban hospital for Cubans.

Medical tourism is a major foreign exhange earner for Cuba and major efforts are made to attract deep-pocket patients from abroad.

I have visited the Texas Medical Center, a 50-hospital complex in Houston, and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

And I'm appalled by the way these US facilities bend over backward to accommodate their deep-pockets from abroad. I was virtually ignored when a deep-pocket was around.

"Have you ever seen how Americans grovel before UK tourists?"

oooo

You would think that every UK is a member of the royal family.

Belial, your credibility is now at an all-time low for using Michael Moore as one of your sources. How long do Cubans have to wait to get treatment? That's something Michael Moore didn't bother pointing out. Even for chronic diseases, most people do not receive treatment on the same day. You can get treatment right away in American hospitals, and even if you are poor, medicaid covers medical expenses. I'm not American, but I have been there.

Do you really think that medical treatment is the reason why Michael Moore or Maradona go to Cuba? I would say is more about the treatment they get from the government once they arrive in the island than the mdeical treatment. Both Moore and Maradona have been spotted several times with teenage Cuban girls in Havana. Maradona in particular, was caught sleeping with a 14 year old girl in one of these so-called "treatment" centers. Who wouldn't be cured through this treatment? lol.

gorilla ...this is like bear baiting.... the poor soul has been humiliated ....let poor belial walk a way with a shred of dignity....you have been torturing him long enough.....he is starting to babble.....enough

yes even Spitzer wanted to go for the special treatment

belial you seem to be scarred by some incident with a person from the U.K.....is this to humiliating to talk about....poor guy...you were quite young correct?

if Saturn and his enablers would define the parameters of the debate, i would be glad to oblige them in an exchange of rejoinders. however, due to the confusion in the minds of these august gentlemen, i am beginning to find myself mired in a morass of confusion, an intellectual ecosystem in which my mind cannot function with alacrity. while i am trying to establish a counter argument to CAPITALISM as a way of organising the means of production and the distribution of the state's treasure, they have somehow disingenuously transformed it into an exposition of OPPORTUNITY IN AMERICA! well, if God gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade, or so the old bromide goes.let me attempt to make something clear to saturn: america did not GIVE you an opportunity out of the intrinsic benevolence of its heart. the economy does not run on auto pilot: somebody has to work. so, collaterally, like many other people, you have a livelihood at this particular point in time.

Allright, I'll stop humilliating Belial for now because I am feeling like placing an order of top-notch Buffalo wings and delicious breadsticks. If Cubans were free to order these delicious wings as we all are (including you Belial) , the country would have been free long time ago.

"america did not GIVE you an opportunity out of the intrinsic benevolence of its heart. the economy does not run on auto pilot: somebody has to work"

Yes, dread, I understand that the US doesn't give out opportunities for free. I fully understand that you have to work for it. So, I am grateful to be in a country that acknoledges hard work and rewards individuals based on merit. So maybe it didn't GIVE the opportunity away, but it certainly made it possible. Under Socialism you can work as hard as you please, you can be on top of your class, you can be at the bottom. The ultimate outcome wouldn't vary.

it has nothing to do with hollywood script rags to riches ,tearker life histories: your bosses could not care less. like millions before you, who no longer have jobs, you are enjoying what could turn out to be temporary good fortune. should the business for whom you work enter into a circumstantial tailspin, the bean counters will be called in , and, like many before you, such as 101,000 this year alone, you could very well find yourself on that long grey line of the american unemployed. if the accountants find that it is advantageous to ship your job to malaysia, because wages are less and unions have no power, they will bid you an unceremonious adieu, and , trust me, you will not be receiving an inquisitive e-mail from your former employer to check on your well-being, or lack of it. you will be summarily dispatched to the halls of their oblivion, another fallen soul who thought he had a job for life. the creditors do not need sob stories about you being the victim of downsizing;

If I get unemployed then I would understand, because this is capitalism. If I do, do you think I would spend my years sobbing, crying, and complaining about my job loss ? NO. I would go out and get another job. No matter what happens, the opportunity to suceed is always available. This is why milions of immigrants like yourself and Belial have decided that, out of 200+ countries in the world, you would rather be in this one. Isn't that right?

but having been trapped into some meaningless exchange with you ,saturn, let us look at the merits or lack thereof of Capitalism and Socialism, not the USA vs the socialist world. this is not the argument. you downplay the value of socialism, and exhort the values of capitalism. you then ask why people from the usa are not heading off to cuba, a loaded question whose answer you already know. be a little more equitable, if you can. why don't you ask why it is that more people are trying to sneak into america from the capitalist paradise of mexico than are coming from the more socialist neighbor to the north, canada?

Or maye you and Belial like the smell of American flowers during spring. Maybe that's why you're here, and not in one of the other 200+ countries in the world.

that is some pretty tough talk from someone that has a job. lets see if you feel equally upbeat after looking for a job for a year and the bimmer and the house have been repossessed!! not to mention the fact that the missus has filed for divorce to rid herself of an unemployed husband, so she can run off( with the kids, i might add) with the UPS deliveryman. think i am making this stuff up? it happens every day. pray it doesn't happen to you, and that your capitalist benefactors will protect you from demise!

I give this round to saturn.

gorill32, if you have only "been to america", you would be better served to eschew forays into the workings of the american medical system. as they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. in your case, it could be thermonuclear!

Dread, the reason why more Mexicans come to the US than Canadians is because there are 108 Million Mexicans living in Mexico, and only 33 Millio Canadians in Canada. From a purely statistical point of you, if 1% of the people in Mexico decide to leave the country, that would be equivalent to 3% of the Canadian population. Get it? Not only that, but the alrger population in Mexico means a tighter labor market than in Canada, which results in more Mexicans being unemployed than Canadians. I can tell you are not strong in the mathematical sciences. To simply take the numbers makes no sense. let's work with ratios. If you take the ratio of Canadians living in the US versus the Canadian population you will get a number that is greater than the ratio of Mexicans in the US divided by the number of Mexicans living in Mexico. Get it? That comparison makes a lot more mathematical sense to me.

Correction: ratio of canadians would be lower than Mexican ratio. Ok..tell me if you need some help with the math. My wings have arrived !!! :)

HAHA. Saturn is taking on both Belial and Dreadlocks, and has them both cornered haha. Dreadlocks, don't just take the numbers, take the ratios as saturn explains.

not so fast, saturn. pretty clever try, but you are not dealing with some joker here, so you cannot slide that by me. first of all, quote me statistics, not theory. can you tell me how many canadians have come down to the usa looking for a better way of life? better yet, how many illegal canadian immigrants have snuck in over the border to escape the ravages of deprivation in canada?when you have done that, we can continue along the lines you initiated. remember, as churchill observed, there are lies, damn lies and there are statistics!

actually ,gorill 32, i can see your mental image from your posting. you seem to see debate as some sort of superbowl. everything is a game, nothing is serious. however, when saturn provides me with the actual numbers of indigent canadians who have risked their well being to sneak into the usa in search of a better life, we will continue!

by the way, saturn, there is no direct correlation between the size of a population and the tightness of the labor market. the labor market was far tighter during the great depression than it was in the year before, but the population change was diminimus. there are more components to consider. i told you to stop trying to run these simple assertions by me.

Dread, you can quote all the leaders you want. The fact is that you can't understand that calculating the numbers in a per-capita basis makes more sense makes me wonder about your supposed top-notch education. Normalize the ratios to its corresponding populations. Do it for Cuba and you'll see you get a number close to 1. Do it for Canada and you will see you get a number greater than if you do it for Mexico. This is simple a simple normalization of data dread. Didn't you learn that during your top-notch education?

Second, the correlation between population and labor market is not linear, and I agree, there are more factors to consider. But you cannot deny the statistical implications. Let me make it simpler for you.... if you have a glass full with water all the way to the top, it is MORE LIKELY that water will go overboard in this situation than when the glass is only half full. It is clear, looking at the population of both Mexico and Canada, that labor is tighter in Mexico.

I will be more than happy to provide you with the actual numbers once my small gathering is over. For now, I'll be enjoying my time in this great capitalist country with my capitalist Dominican and American friends. Salud !

oh, and Happy Easter !

saturn there can be no statistical implications in your example unless all other things are equal: ceteris paribus. you sound like you have a mathematical strong suit, so you should know this. i might have forgotten the niceties of the black art of econometrics, having studied them many decades ago. but this rusty old mind is still too analytical to be fooled by three card monte tricks. be careful with me, saturn: i'm a baaad man! happy easter, my friend, to you and yours.

dread, I'm not simplifying. You mentioned ceteris paribus. Then you would know about the necessity of simplifying assumptions in order to devise or explain an analytical framework that does not necessarily prove cause and effect ,but is still useful for describing fundamental concepts within a realm of inquiry. By the way, what do you do for a living? I'm just curious. You and my sociology professors in college would get along very well.

Latin America its already in crisis !!!

i am a washed up investment project analyst

hey saturn, i may be washed up, but still good enough to have been able to caution Leonel to proceed slowly with the METRO!

dont misread this; i didn;t actually caution him, but i could have if they had asked my opinion and findings

there would be few Canadians going to the US...... Canadians are basically law abiding and would be less inclined to be illegal aliens...and there is not the money disparity in jobs...so why bother ...the major incentive is lifestyle because of climate

in closing ,saturn, let me wish you all the best in your career, and may you have a successful set of circumstances, unmolested by my UPS driver scenario( just kidding). God bless: you earned it!!

I understand. I'm actually glad Leonel proceeded with the project. Obviosly more oversight and transparency is needed. I think, however, we should have never built a lighthouse to Columbus. It serves no practical purpose. BTW...I'm a military jet designer. Doubled major in engineering and economics. Maybe I would be a little better at debating the use of the Navier-Stokes equations than "ceteris paribus".

same to u dread.

jeezus, Goulet! that has got to be the most thoughtless and bigoted remark you have uttered to date. don't you think before you write,man? are you postulating that canadians are law abiding by nature, and mexicans are inherently lawless? i do not know what to make of you. i hope you said that just for shock value. if you did not, you need some type of intervention.

congrats, saturn. i am proud of you, myself. i have forgotten too much to debate any theoretical postulates, but i can hold my own analytically. we can agree to disagree on the Metro, which, in my analysis, is a disastrous blunder. you are familiar with high tech: do you realise what is going to happen when this thing malfunctions?

My strength is in the field of aeronautics, so I'm more familiar with rockets and jets than cars and trains. But from what I have read the biggest problem is the availability of electricity, which is why the Metro has its own independent powerplant. Because the powerplant is off the national grid, it allows the train to run nonstop even if the country is in a blackout. Malfunctions for reasons other than electricity can be fixed by engineers. A big reason why I think the Metro is a good idea is because it introduces competition in a market completely monopolized by unions, or the so-called "country's owners". Now both the unions AND the government will be in a competition to attract more passengers. I think that with time, the only way they can do this is by pushing prices down, which will be good to the general population.

I also think that the government can eventually recover its investments in the metro if it chooses to by selling it to a private company for a profit.

it reads correctly ...you like Obama live by P.C. will die by P.C.... A .Canadian does not live with such desperation for the material junk the USA has to offer because they already have the same material junk.....there you go again trying to deal the slimy race card off the bottom of the deck

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.co....ill-ayers-problem.html.......this aint no swift boat,,,,,this with jeramia big mouth are hard to get around

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.co....02/obamas-bill-ayers-problem.html .......sorry try this

actually, saturn, the biggest problem will be the amount of money divertrd from other areas of need to subsidise the operation of the metro. they are projecting a fare of 20 peso per rider. they claim it will carry 200,000 per day, which i seriously doubt. the san juan metro, which operates in the same type of traffic situation , is up to around 25,000 per. san juan has the highest traffic density in the caribbean, by far. all said, fare -box receipts will NEVER cover the cost of operation and loan amortization. so some other areas will have to go without in order for the metro to survive. in a country wherein there are such glaring deficiencies in health care and education, this is not a good thing. secondly, a public offering on the stock market will never amount to much. no sane investor is going to buy stock in an entity in the DR which is so politically centered. if the pld ever loses an election, which it will, the prd will leave it to rust!

gotta hand it to you, Goulet. you are good. foul, but good.you assert that the reason why there are less illegal canadians than mexicans in the USA is because canadians are law abiding , and less likely to be illegal aliens. when i draw attention to what YOU said, i am playing the race card! the term DISHONEST has your picture in the dictionary!

dredy please my sensitive feelings

dread, I thought you were asking about technical issues. Yes, you are right that there are a lot of logistical issues as well. Also, I highly doubt that there would be any public offering on the metro "stock". As far as I know there has never been a public stock offering in DR. Only bond offerings from copanies listed in the Dominican exchange. Depending on how the metro performs and the opportunities for improvement, I don't see why investors wouldn't be interesting in purchasing the metro, especially if the tax incentives currently in place for investments in tourism and real estate are offered for investments in infrastructure. Hey, DominicanToday has new forums for this type of exchange. maybe we can further discuss there as supposed to in the comments of this article, which really have nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis.

saturn, you are correct about stock offerings on the Dominican exchange. i was made to understand that stock offerings would soon become a reality, but i have not seen any recent movement in that direction. sadly, the metro is not going to attract any worthwhile attention in that sphere: nobody invests in a business entity which cannot make money. i do not believe the metro can ever get out of red ink: it cannot charge a fare box price sufficiently high to make any worthwhile revenue, simply because people are too poor. at least in puerto rico disposable incomes are higher. even when the san juan subway was free, it cold not attract flies. couple that to competition from carritos, energy costs, maintenance downtime and amortization schedules, and it will be a bust, at least financially. if it achieves the social objectives, that is great. but investors are not interested in cost-benefit analysis: they are interested in profit and loss.

Dred please note I use Canadian, American and Mexican as nationalities not as race.....the statistical info will bear me out ....What does a Mexican crossing the border illegally have to lose ? that is the whole reason he is crossing.....NOTHING..... so put the card back in the deck ...not on the bottom....Canadians are not motivated for the same reasons ....they mostly want a better climate

dred San Juan and Santo Domingo are not very similar ...hardly any motor bikes and everyone owns a car ....the wonders of the American flag....San juan is a city that works relative to the rest of LA...the wealth of ordinary people disproves the whole cuban scam

I lived there for 4 years over the last 30 and have visited many hundreds of times

exactly, Goulet, the reason for the san juan subway is to get people out of the cars and ride the subway, in order to reduce the legendary traffic congestion in the city. it has not worked, because people still drive their cars, and the subway cars run around empty. there is nothing to indicate that the same condition will not eventuate here. it is wearying to go over the same thing a gazillion times, but the government did no geographic information studies to ascertain if the subway, as it is presently constituted, will attract sufficient ridership to make it worthwhile. studies such as those take years to accomplish, but Leonel did not have the time to wait. i am willing to hazard a guess that the ridership will not reach 200,000 per day, as he claims it will. heck, if they can only get 133,000 in los angeles with 14 miles of track , i dont see 200,000 here with 9 miles. in los angeles, the subway receives no competition from carritos, either.

saturn, i see where you suggested that the metro could be sold off to a private concern. will never happen. there is no subway system that i can think of which operates at a profit, and an investor is not going to plunk down good money on a sure loser.

well it may not work like San Juan but for totally different reasons....i cannot imagine being squashed in a old toyota versus riding smoothly in aire conditioned comfort

dread, I do agree that the projet was poorly planned. However, I do think that the decision to build an alternate system was the right one, especially with the current monopoly. If the decision to build an alternate transportation system was to me, I would have proposed a rail system rather than a subway. There is really no need to have a train going underground besides the fact that we would like to show off our modern system. I think the costs could have easily been cut to half by having a ground-level rail and simply avoiding the excavations costs. Unfortunately, the initial phase of the project has already been built, and we can't turn back time. What should be done now is finding out a way to make it work. I wouldn't assume it will be a sure money loser. There rare many creative ways to make it work. For example, we can charge companies for marketing their products in the train, and in the stations. Marketing is about 30% of the subway revenues in New York. There are other ways.

I am amazed that the thing is almost complete.. The final cost is not known yet known ...I hope I will have to eat my words.....but disaster could be around the corner let us hope not...next time more transparency

saturn, we are in full agreement on that one. if it was a foregone conclusion that the thing had to be built, i would have looked at building an above ground system such as the various trains-to-the-plane monorails at international airports. cut down on underground excavation and the associated hazards such as cave-ins. one must remember that earthquakes do happen here. but subways are sexy, and makes Leo look like more of a visionary, sad to say. i do agree with you that something had to be done, since traffic chaos is only becoming more and more catastrophic. marketing of products does generate a lot of revenue for nyc subways, but here is the difference: in new york city, the majority of stations are just for embarking and disembarking: they have no other uses, not even restrooms. then you have massive facilities such as Times Square, Grand central station and 34th and 8 ave( madison square garden) these things are literally shopping malls, and cater to high end shoppers

tourists from all over the world pass through grand central station, and the port authority of new york and new jersey derives a lot of revenue from renting office and commercial space. not to mention the various food courts and souvenir concessions. but we are talking about hubs here, not unilinear rails. some guy on a stopover in new york on amtrak can stay in grand central terminal and shop for just about everything he needs without going out onto the street. the same does not apply to the 9 miles of railway of the metro. what could you need to buy so urgently that could not wait 4 or 5 stops? and could the seller offer it more cheaply than the external vendor,after having to pay the metro authorities their rent? advertising billboards? not really. what is their return on investment ratio, given the fact that a large fraction of the ridership does not, or cannot, read?

Have you seen the master plan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maste_plan.JPG
This initial phase is ~ 1/5 of the total project.

CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com, Mar 24, 2008

http://www.petroleumworld.com/story08032410.htm

Venezuela's decision to sell some of its oil in euros will help the country offset the economic impact of the falling US dollar but could cause problems if more widely applied, experts said Wednesday.

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez confirmed Tuesday that the government was billing some of its oil exports in euros because of the "worrying" weakness of the dollar and its effect on Venezuela's already high inflation rate.

"We are trialing billing in euros for some deliveries," said Ramirez, who is also head of the state oil company PDVSA.

He stressed, however, that "this does not constitute a specific policy."
It remained unclear which oil sales would require payment in euros.

For Jose Guerra, an economy professor at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas and former central bank board member, the experiment was "positive" for the country.

thanks for the link, saturn. the next question is this: will they build the whole thing if phase one flops completely?

Belial, trust me on this one: if Venezuela tries to bill the USA in euro, we are going to have an explosive international incident. we saw what happened to Saddam, who was on the verge of demanding oil payment in euro. the us economy cannot withstand any further tailspins, and the politicians are not going to sit on their hands and watch the country go to hell in a handbasket!