Last time I tore into the republicans and not for the countless things that I could have… I tore into them for simple rights because my point was simple. While I never said exactly what that was I figured some might catch it. The issue is this, they don’t feel like everyone is equal so why treat them as such. I know harsh statement hu? Think about it though if you believed honestly that certain people were wrong, going to hell and didn’t want to change how would you treat them. Its much deeper than that as well but that is the simple starting point. Enough about Republicans though, I would rather shift. I have felt for a long time that it is pointless to vote. I know sad thing to say, but really if you live in a republican state to make a change vote democratic and if you are in a democratic state vote the opposite right? I mean what really are you going to accomplish? The way to make a change is really stand for something thats my feeling. Get a lobbyist group together and really start pulling for rights. Thats how you make a difference. But my feeling goes far beyond that. You see I believe my vote won’t make a difference because its not a two party system. Sorry to say it but its not even a system period. What we have in front of us are a bunch of politicians that say one thing and take money from corporations behind the scene. They are merely pawns and the recent events have shown that so much more obviously to me. I recently watched, “The Inside Job” and it has shed so much light on the truth.
You see I was around for the internet crash in the 90′s and just starting to try to get my career off to a start. I had such a difficult time breaking into the industry and would hear all these great commercials about getting myself into a high paying carrier. The thing is I was out in around 96 or so and no one wanted someone out of college. Funny how they don’t tell you that fresh out of college. No what companies were looking for was someone who had 10+ years of service. I wouldn’t say 20 years because then you have been developing for too long. Yet I heard these great decelerations all over about how companies couldn’t find qualified individuals… but wait I need to back up a bit. You see the 90′s crash for technology was more than just an internet bubble. Some people will say it was a new technology and a natural shift of something new. It was more than that. It was a time of unregulated and everyone was running in and grabbing what they could. Investors knew that these companies were not really doing anything but the investment firms were giving everyone grade A ranks. So lots of money was sunk into companies with no backing. Telecom industries were also largely invested in. So many different things feed into this, the fiber technology and speculation were huge in those days. In the end billions of dollars were dissolved into nothing and some lost everything others made tons. It was all part of a new era for investors. The staging grounds for something much larger.
The something much larger was the deregulation and derivatives. The movie that I mentioned really went highly in-depth about this. It basically meant that people could now bet on things in the market without actually owning any of the underline, stock, commodity, future or so forth. Basically it meant they could guess the price of electricity and guess what it worked. California now had rolling blackouts and people couldn’t afford the price of electricity. Yes there was a huge scandal behind this, but you know its part of why I say the world is backwards. We have decided to deregulate everything so anything can be gambled on. Which brings us to the current housing market issue. I will bring all this back to politics in a few paragraphs but stick with me. You see the deregulation affected the world and we as selfish self-righteous Americans did this to ourself. The lending companies you loaned from before are the same companies that held your loan. The banks were tight on loans because if the loan was defaulted on then the bank would lose. Not anymore, you see now when you get a loan it goes through another company that then packages them up gives them an investor rating and they are bought off. Now if you understand stocks people buy and sell those almost as stock and the underline future value of those. It was stated that the purpose for loosing up the loan qualifications was so anyone could own a home. So what happened everyone got a home and the price kept going up and up as the loans got more and more archaic so the average buyer didn’t understand the terms. A lot of these loans were put on a floating rate with two mortgages one for the down payment at a higher interest rate and the 2nd at a lower rate both floating. This way the person when buying a home could easily afford a 200k home that the payments would be around $800. The issue was the rate went up and they would end up paying maybe 2k for the same home. I am not sure on the actual math but it created an issue. Also everyone was swamped with debt from credit cards to everything everyone financed a brighter future. Banks were also betting way too deep on everyone being able to pay it off. In a sense we all got greedy. When people started defaulting on loans the whole thing went up in smoke. The banks betting on these loans being paid off lost big time. It was a huge bubble that burst and now every bank was in huge financial trouble. They had way over invested on our accounts and payment of these homes. So thus the government was brought into it and everyone knows the rest of the story… kind of. The government meaning the people bailed out the whole system. Many banks went under and now we have even larger and smaller banks than what we had before. The CEO’s got paid millions in bonuses and the world suffered. Yet its still not the end of the story.
The part that bothers me the most is that the poorest of the poor got hurt. I never thought about it but the people in China that were making $70 a month are the ones that got hurt the hardest and millions of Americans that are also now out of work. The issue is that these people who were put in place, like Alan Greenspan are the same people who praised the idea of derivatives. The people who were the CEO’s of bank corporations are now in Washington helping “regulate” the system. What bothers me worse is that every industry in America is this way, from food to medicine. We are a society based on making rich, richer and leaving the rest out. Now the government has two lobbyist for every one congress person for each bank. Do you have that much power and say? What does the FDA have for each congress person? What is going on here? Why is it that we are more concerned with policing nations and not giving our own healthcare, free education and bettering our society. This is my last statement on this issue but what are we doing? So really does it matter if we vote Republican or Democratic? Of course I didn’t dive into everything going on. I really believe politicians do something. I mean why wouldn’t they bring up the whole constitutional ban on gay marriage now? Isn’t that the most important thing going on in our society right now or is it a slight of hand so you don’t see whats really happening?
Resources to read and watch (warning they will upset you):
The inside job (documentary)
The Beautiful Truth (documentary)
8: The Mormon Proposition (documentary)
Killer at Large (documentary)
Maxed out (documentary)
Fathead (documentary)
Food Inc (documentary)
The story of stuff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower?CMP=NECNETTXT766
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/30/school-districts-nationwide_n_867223.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=606891,b=facebook
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/judd-gregg-hired-by-goldm_n_868282.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=606891,b=facebook
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