if there were anything that showed more clearly how completely disconnected from reality the GOP and its base is, consider that Hillary as President would likely mean a better life for most people in this country. Even rich people.

What in hell are they afraid of? There's nothing scary about Clinton. At least, compared to Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Not to mention Nixon.

I'm not sure she'd make the best President in the field, but she'd absolutely be light-years ahead of anyone on the GOP side, and thus, I'll happily vote for her and see her win in 2008, if that's what it takes. We simply cannot afford another GOP President, not now, and maybe not ever, the way the party is now.

These guys are still acting as if Bush and Cheney have been just GREAT for the country. What does that tell you?

And don't even quote Grover Norquist at me. He is an extremist toad whose views would be utterly ignored in a sane world. The fact that anyone listens to him about anything tells me, as little else can, just how dysfunctional our political culture is.

I heard an ad for medical insurance recently. It reminded me how utterly broken our system of medical care and medical insurance is. And the people who know this most acutely are the people most likely to vote GOP...and thus AGAINST their own interest.

The Dems have to figure out how to get this message to swing voters. Vote GOP, and you vote for continued misery, a continued dangerous world. Vote Democratic, and we all have at least a shot at a better life. Another GOP president would be the final ruination of the American experiment.

...sorry for taking the savior-I-don't-believe-in, in vain. But..CHRIST.

It's stuff like this that convinces me that:

A) The Bush administration has never been talking to more than half the country.

B) That they are convinced the half of the country they *do* talk to is dumb as dirt..

C) This administration would rather lie than tell the truth at any point, about any subject.

A trillion dollars. We could have had a pure single-payer national health care system for a lot less than that. Simply expand Medicare to cover everyone, with reasonable adjustment to compensation amounts to doctors and hospitals. A trillion bucks would have paid for years' worth. We could have booted the insurance industry out of the business entirely, and set up a beautiful single-payer system. The money we pay insurance companies now would fund such a system in perpetuity. Simple, relatively cheap, to cover all Americans, pay doctors and hospitals what they're worth, with enough left over to start funding a massive reconstruction of our passenger rail system nationwide. Not to mention a complete overhaul of our energy infrastructure to plan for the decline of oil production worldwide, and the natural gas cliff that is coming up any time now.

All things that would have made a lot of people's lives better. Things a responsible government would have done long since.

If we were going to borrow a trillion bucks from the *chinese* for christ's sweet sake, we could have spent it on investments in the future, you know?

Now we're over our heads to the Chinese, for what?

What has the Iraq war done? Killed a lot of innocent people (along with some guilty), destroyed a country, made the world far more dangerous for America and Americans specifically, and, lest I forget, enriched to obscene levels the Friends of George and Dick.

I'm going to go spend some time vomiting in the toilet now, thanks.

creative financing of real estate is extremely useful, and often powerful...if you know how to use it.

Putting creative loans in the hands of amateurs (many home-buyers), is like putting a loaded automatic in the hands of a four-year-old.

Used wisely, things like neg-am loans, interest-only loans and ARM loans can all be real money-makers. Use them stupidly, and you get cooked.

It's like anything else in this complex society...if you don't understand it, stay away from it..

JB wrote:

One more thing, the subprime issues will pale in comparison to the option ARM issues that are soon to come.

***********

Yup. What is it? Near a *trillion* dollars worth of ARM debt re-adjusts in the next two years? Something like that. Enough to cause a problem, that's for sure.

And many of these people are people who *can* afford the adjusted mortgage rate...barely. People who are really committed to their homes will sacrifice nearly everything to keep them. My guess? The ARM debacle will take awhile to play out, because people will be doing everything they can to make the payment..refinancing when they can.

We may not get a huge increase in foreclosures...but a lot of houses will go on the market, in areas that can least afford it, and consumers who have these loans won't have any disposable income. The ARM thing will keep the market depressed in many areas, I'm guessing, and consumer spending will tank in those same areas.

You know, I just read this again, and I'm really floored at Snow's disingenuousness.

How does the cost of 9/11 to the country square with the cost of the Iraq war? How did Snow conflate those two things?

Then, you think about it, considering how the administration has connected the war and the WTC attacks, you could say the cost of the Iraq war ADDED to the cost of 9/11, to the tune of a trillion bucks.

In other words, Snow didn't help himself. Nor his boss. I can't decide if he's a imbecile, or he thinks everyone listening to him is an imbecile, or he's convinced the only people who matter--the idiot-30-percenters--are imbeciles.

No matter how you slice it, and response like that should be a real embarrassment. But I suppose it wasn't.

Anyone else feel like Alice through the Looking Glass these days?