Which Candidate Do You Think WIll Better Address The Current State of the Housing Market?

Um, I can see it, because Obama is more focused on the economics, BUT what really needs to be asked is about corruption.

Which candidate do you feel will remove the corruption from Congress? W/o corruption removed, there's no way to fix the economy and deal with the foreclosures.

You see, I should mention that the value of our homes have never changed, only the value of the dollar. By removing the corruption from Congress, we can stablize the dollar. Our Congress should NOT be for sale.

Remove corruption from Congress?  I almost feel as though that is an unattainable goal.  I'm very well informed in the politics going on in my local municipality.  The kind of corruption even on that level, makes me scared of what's going on on the Federal level.

Your not kidding Jim! With them having the power to 'coin and regulate money', it's downright terrifying! They can also in one day wipe out all foriegn exchange rates.

Which Candidate Do You Think WIll Better Address The Current State of the Housing Market?

The phrasing of this question assumes that this should be addressed by the president.  Seems to me the market is doing a very good job of 'addressing' this.  Home prices were over values, lots of loans were made using over valued collateral.  This is just merely a correction of the biggest housing bubble ever.

mcain is not coming off too good in the economy polls, most people dont believe he really knows what is going on... little lone how to fix it. the question becomes does obama? err, no. is paulson really trying to fix it? err, no. will the next secratary of the treasury? err probably not.

everyone seems to want to minimize the problem by undoing the contraction. "lets free up lending" this problem was caused by too many people being lent to, too freely.  the contraction that we have seen so far IS NOT THE CRISIS. Wall St IS NOT THE CRISIS. Housing IS NOT THE CRISIS. Debt is the crisis, americans need to free themselves from debt, the govt needs to spend less than 15% of their budget on frieking interest payments, THE SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM

obama

Considering Fannie Mae is the center of this crisis, I would say McCain, who sponsored a bill to seek oversight over Fraudie Mae rather than Obama, who was bought and paid for by Fannie Mae as well as the Democratic Congress that had a party line vote against oversight of Fraudie.  Sometimes, I would like to blame the people that elected these officials, but how were they to know they would royally screw our economy beyond repair. 

Which Candidate Do You Think WIll Better Address The Current State of the Housing Market?

Well, if you go by my assumption that McCain would die during his first month in office, then by doing nothing he would hands down be the better choice - as long as you don't count what Palin would do after that.

If you do count her, then I'll take Obama's epic economy-destroying catastrophe over McCain/Palin's colossal failure beyond even the dommiest doomer's nightmares.

But hey, I'm an optimist.

So, what exactly is the colossal failure?  Just wondering.

My guess would be a bailout (or series of them) that makes the current one seem like chump change.   Eventually resulting in the US Government defaulting on debt.

But I wouldn't rule out them coming up with something else that nobody can even imagine right now.  Like if you told someone 8 years ago that massive loans given out to people with no documentation would bring down the economy.

The U.S. Government will not be defaulting on any debt (as long as it is still called the U.S.).  If we can't renegotiate a loan, and can't borrow more money to pay a loan, we will lease federal highways to pay the loan.

If we can't lease enough assets quickly enough, we will offer various assets for sale.  Highways, National Parks, Military Bases, Miltary Surplus, Post Offices, Court Buildings, Federal Prisons, water rights, etc.  As the money is imaginary anyway, we can pay back the loans with dollars that are worth 1/4 of what the goverment spent the money on in the first place.

A "colossal failure" is removing 80% of the local jobs -- reducing tax revenue, shipping most jobs overseas, making the majority of the public dependent on the government for minimal sustinance.  Catoring to the internationalized "mega corporations" helps lead toward accomplishing that goal.  All 8 candidates lean towards that "colossal failure" policies and goal.  None of the candidates support terrifs on imported products (exported labor) nor policies that build up and increase the small business.

By the way, my sample ballot only lists 6 candidates for president; a Green, a Libertarian, an American Independent, a "Peace & Freedom", a Republican, and a Democrat.

I'm surprised that Nader is running under "Peace & Freedom" as that party's platform has typically been quite communist oriented in policy.  Nader has tended to be for regulation of industry and consumer protection, not nationalization of industry.

All 8 candidates lean towards that "colossal failure" policies and goal. None of the candidates support terrifs on imported products (exported labor) nor policies that build up and increase the small business.

A tarriff, brilliant!  That's just what we need right now.  Maybe we can dig up Smoot and Hawley to write it for us.

Pitt, I am convinced that the people who post on this board - with the exception of a very few -  must have flunked history.

Terriffs have worked very well for the U.S. in many industries over the years, as well as even better for many other nations.  But the recent trade agreements that limit the ability to apply terriffs and have removed many of the existing ones have not been good for the U.S. economy, unless you are a mega-corporation owner or just like buying items at 2 cents per hour labor.

But the U.S. still violates those trade agreements anyway.  Subsidies of U.S. industries have a similar effect as terriffs of imports, and violate the trade agreement just as much.  YET the "Farm Bill" and many other bills continue to subsidise various U.S. production items, such as corn, wheat, tobaco, cotton, potatos, soybeans.

Oil production is also heavily subsidized in many different ways.  And many research fields are heavily subsidized.  All these violate agreements like NAFTA.

But NAFTA and the others need to be repealed as they are a major contributor to the present global economic instability.

Sure there is a risk of smuggling; but we already have that due to copyright and patent infingment.  The ones that think they know history so well have not even paid attention to the present beyond the government & mega corporation propaganda.  And if you knew how information was selected to be included or excluded from school text books, you would realize the propaganda efforts have been very effective at brainwashing people that have never been outside this country.

All farm subsidies should be eliminated. Tarriffs should only be used as retaliation for other tarriffs/subsidies.

NAFTA is good for everyone but the unskilled and overpaid.  Deal with it.

 I totally agree with N T E T S . The problem is debt. Credit card companies, car loans, mortgages. student loans. I think we created a false economy due to spending money we haven't earned and it has snapped . How do we solve this?

There is no universal agreement about the effect of the tariff. According to the U.S. Statistical Abstract, the effective tariff rate was 13.5% in 1929 and 19.8% in 1933 with 63% of all imports being duty-free. From 1821 through 1900 the United States averaged 29.7% effective tariff rates and peaked in 1830 at 57.3% with only 8% of all imports being duty-free, dwarfing the Smoot-Hawley rate. In addition, imports in 1929 were only 4.2% of the United States' GNP and exports were only 5.0%. Smoot-Hawley's effect on the entire U.S. economy may have been small, compared to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System. By 1937 the effective tariff rate was reduced to 15.6% when the reaction of 1937-1938 occurred, demonstrating no statistical correlation between this economic downturn and tariff levels.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act

As a result of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and other countries' responses to it, the world after World War II saw a push towards multilateral trading agreements that would prevent a similar situation from unfolding. This led to the Bretton Woods Agreement, in 1944, a great lessening of global tariffs starting in December 1945, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in the 1950s.

However, the American Tariff League Study of 1951 which compared the effective tariff levels of 43 countries found that only 7 countries had a lower tariff level than the United States (5.1%). 11 countries had effective tariff rates higher than the Smoot-Hawley peak of 19.8% including the United Kingdom (25.6%). The 43 country average was 14.4% - 0.9% higher than the U.S. level of 1929.

In addition to tariffs, many countries implemented non-tariff barriers to protect their industries in the aftermath of WW II after experiencing the dangers of dependence on imports for vital supplies brought upon by free trade policies. Many nations felt the ill effects of embargoes, naval blockades and submarine warfare upon their national security

    I would like NAFTA become fair trade. Not free trade. What is the point of having free trade if it benefits others but not us?

Nutcream,

It seems one of us on this board graduated with a BSBS.  You are the dumbest smart person I know.  It seems you know nothing about anything other than the fact that you can insult someone else's point of view without anything to back it up.  You, sir, are a person with subnormal intelligence.

It really doesn't matter what the general public "thinks" about which candidate's policies might be better for housing.  The public's opinion is only based on advertisement propaganda, and has nothing to do with actual policies that may or may not be implimented.  And even if it slightly influenced some people's vote; more people are concerned about the general economy rather than just housing, and are more concerned about war and international policy than just one aspect of political leadership.

Besides, all the candidates are already bought out by the mega-corporations, so you will get exactly the same thing for economic policy regardless of which candidate ends up in office.  The argument is one of Coke verses Pepsi and it is competely irrelivant since neither has any nutritional value, both taste like brown carbonated corn-syrup sugar water and are both poison.

     I agree with Pasadenan. I think choosing between Mc Cain and Obama is like choosing between Coke and Pepsi. Neither has any value. I think that is because whomever is president is going to sorely wish they never were after about 6 months.

The "purpose" for terriffs is to compensate for environmental impacts when not properly done so by those providing the product, and/or for compensating for inadequate wages or other human rights violations.

Terrriffs should never be used for "retaliation" as retaliation never works.

But if the policy is clear on how the terriffs are established, than those that don't want their products to have extra taxes will make the changes to remove the tax.  This benifts all parties.

     Cant they just have fair trade instead of free trade? Why should we continue with NAFTA if its unfair to us?

What I've seen promoted as "fair trade" is not "fair" to anyone; just overpriced product of things most people don't need, marketed with messages about how you will be hurting other people if you don't buy the overpriced product.

How can anyone determine what is "fair"?  Are you just trying to add additional governmental regulation and price controls?  How can you mandate that the exporters are actually paying their workers properly and not taking too big a profit as the "middle man"?

The only thing that works is terriffs.  If a product is being produced in a harmful way; it needs to be taxed by the importing country so that other products can compete better.  And if the producer/exporter corrects the problems, the terriff is reduced or removed.

Otherwise, all local jobs will eventually be shipped overseas where Highly skilled labor jobs (lawyers...) are paid less than $3 per hour instead of over $200 per hour.

Sure, we have some "protections" for "licenced professionals" like myself, but there is no guarentee of those protections remaining, and that still is undermined by professionals signing documents produced by overseas workers.

    Oh I don't know Pasadenan. I think the way NAFTA is set up its not fair for us in some cases. I don't know much about it or economics on that kind of level. I think tariffs are fine as long as they don't lead to protectionism.

I never claimed NAFTA was fair; I suggested it be repealed, as well as most other present trade agreements that only benifit the mega-corporations.

I simply stated there is no way to define or impliment a "fair" system; the closest we can come is to tax products that try to cut corners to undermine others; thus making the playing field more level.

This is no different than a handicap in certain types of sports.

We will always have some protectionism in the U.S., especially in the "defence" (weapons) industry.  There would be a security breach risk otherwise.  And many government contracts will require american products, and prevailing wage.

I'm not suggesting overtaxing foreign labor or foreign products; only taxing sufficiently so that U.S. companies that have to comply by U.S. rules and regulations have a chance to compete, and a reason to choose to hire local rather than hire over the internet or telephone.

Actually, I think all U.S. cities should also adapt "work-local hire-local" laws and policies.  If the U.S. is going to collect taxes from workers here, why should a company outsource to other countries just so that the government cannot collect any tax benifits from the work that was performed?  Tax that outsourced labor too to keep the jobs local.

   You make excellent points Pasa .