The day after Obama was elected, my son and husband bought ammo. He wants to sky rocket the prices on it and make it harder to buy. For the amount they bought, I don't think we'll ever have to buy it again.

*sigh* When are we going to look at this economy, and all of the associated problems, in the context of history, instead of just yelling "It's BUSH'S fault!!"?

Crash course.... Bush did not start the whole housing bubble, which started this mess. That started back in the Carter years (I believe) when Mr. Carter believed that everyone - regardless of income or ability to pay - was entitled to a house of their own. He helped craft legislation to support those beliefs, and Fannie Mae, et al, were born.

Reagan slowed it down, but Clinton fired that program back up again, and added language that forced (yes forced) banks to write loans to high-risk borrowers in depressed neighborhoods, without checking on background or resources. If the banks didn't write those loans, they faced government fines. This is also when the adjustable rate mortgage, or A.R.M., came into effect, and people were all excited about "no interest" home loans. What those loans really were, were loans in which the interest was deferred - or put off - for multiple years.

On top of that, Fannie Mae was buying and selling people's mortgages just like you would buy and sell stocks. Good mortgages were often packaged with bad to get the bad ones off the books.

This worked for a while, but started causing a bubble, when people who made relatively little starting buying houses in the million-dollar range. "Keep up with the Joneses" was running rampant, and people were getting locked into houses that they simply couldn't afford. There were also those who were into "flipping" - buying houses for cheap, then almost immediately selling them for a profit.

Flash forward to '07 & '08. Now you have an entire economy based on faulty mortgage loans, and high interest rates coming due, which causes those "cheap" monthly payments to skyrocket. Now, suddenly, people can't pay their mortgages. Banks have to foreclose, and now they have lots and lots of toxic assets (houses that they can't sell). Banks start to declare bankruptcy - so they can reorganize, because that's what one form of bankruptcy is for - and the government (this is under GWB) says, "no... you're too big to fail", and we have the first of many ineffective, and frankly, very dangerous bailouts.

Now Mr. Obama takes office, and, instead of doing what every American Citizen is very strongly admonished to do - cut spending and live within their means - he writes what are we on, now, THREE? HUGE spending bills, rocketing our deficit to the unthinkable amount of $10 TRILLION... which means that, if that bill came due today, every family of three in America would owe the staggering sum of approximately $161,000.00 (side track: why is nobody yelling about that? It was "criminal" when the deficit was $4 Billion, under Bush). Not only is he trying to bail out every single big business out there that's going under - car manufacturers, AIG, most of Wall Street - he's trying to stockpile money for a universal health care system that has not been crafted, and has not received approval from the American People.

This financial crisis is NOT all the fault of George W. Bush, no matter how much you want to dump it in his lap. It took the work of many presidents, and many, many incompetent and arrogant congresspeople to do that. And this financial crisis will NOT be cured with the methods that Obama is using. Devaluing the dollar by simply printing more and more currency will only dig us deeper, injure (for real) our standing in the world, and quite possibly, bankrupt the United States of America. Have a nice day.

I pray daily for this country, because I fear for her future.

And I'm planting a massive garden this summer, and planning for canning season. And yeah, I also bought a fair amount of ammunition. Unfortunately, if Obama has his way, that will be illegal, too.

Thank you LS for stating what should be the obvious. Too bad people run off at the mouth before educating themself of a little history.

Speaking of history - please point to one successful example in history where a government spent itself out of an economic problem?

Karen, look up Sweden, 1934. First nation to *completely recover* from the Great Depression. This was accomplished with plenty of deficit spending.

Uly - maybe you ought to do some research. Most analyst today say that it was the early revival of Sweedish exports in the 30s rather than deficit spending that was the primary cause for rapid recovery from the depression.

And most analysts today agree that the deficit spending during the Great Depression in this country PROLONGED the depression and only (ok mostly) the war got us out of that mess.

But if you want to discuss Keynesian economics, we are probably going to have to take it to e-mail. We'd bore everyone to death on this forum.

And we haven't even begun to discuss the other horrible outcomes that increased deficit spending on the creation of new government programs creates....

Plain and simple - Obama's plan is horrible. It was horrible when George W. Bush started the bailouts and it is only getting worse.

Frankly, I'm not the slightest bit interested in who created this mess, but I'm distraught over how much worse we are making things in the attempt to fix it.

One other thing. I think the garden is a great idea. But mostly because I believe it sets an example of eating REAL food and not chemicals. The White House chef lobbied for this garden and I think it is a great idea.

So there - -something nice about the Obamas. Or at least their chef. :)

LS- You provide some good information about the history of the economic crisis we are currently in. Yes, it was Carter who started the CRA.
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 seeks to address discrimination in loans made to individuals and businesses from different areas or neighborhoods,[6][7][8] and mandates that all banking institutions that receive FDIC insurance be evaluated by the relevant banking regulatory agencies to determine if the institution has met the credit needs of its entire community in a manner consistent with safe and sound operations.

Reagan did not slow it down he simply did not enforce the laws.
The next step was The Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) which was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. FIRREA established the four-tiered grading system that is still in effect today to evaluate a bank's CRA performance. The rating system is: (1) "outstanding," (2) "satisfactory," (3) "needs to improve," or (4) "substantial noncompliance." After Congress adopted FIRREA the regulatory agencies issued a joint statement that outlined a set of twelve new assessment factors that would be used to examine the banks for CRA compliance.
Next up-Clinton. He did revise the CRA but the revisions did not force banks to write loans to high-risk borrowers. Banks had always been subject to fines under the CRA. Clinton did not change that.

There is a difference between ARM loans and loans were interest is deferred. Straight ARM loans are actually reasonable loans under many circumstances. I have one. This year my interest rate is 4%. Can’t beat that.

No one will deny that subprime mortgage lending practices are what started this mess but they are not what caused the huge downfall that we are experiencing. We can attribute that to all the unregulated gambling going on behind the subprime mortgages. It wasn’t just Joe foreclosing on his home and his bank taking a loss. The really cause is Mortgage Backed Securities, Credit Default Swaps and the deregulation of deritivies.

I am curious to know how you propose to solve this problem?

Oh please, we can blame each president the US has every had on all that is wrong with our nation. How about we, as a nation, start only dwelling on all the positives our presidents have done. After all, it isn't an easy job for anyone, republican or democrat. It seems to be a thankless job and unfortunately, President Obama will find that out in four or eight years. I say we band together and make this nation the greatest, like our forefathers envisioned.

Fizzygrrl, "wah wah wah" back to you...a little over sensitive are you?? How does this blog offend you so much??? You are the one that needs to get over it...not everyone loves Obama or his plans for this country...free speech is still a right in this country, for now anyway...if Rachel's blogs irritate you that much, stop reading them...it's your whining that is irritating to me.

FuzzyGirl, people are buying weapons and ammunition because it's complainers like you who will begin rioting/looting in the streets, if/when this economy crashes and our way of life as we know it, ends.
I

To Glorious.

I am not a riot and loot type of gal. So, you won't be seeing me in the riot and looting masses. Terribly sorry about that. Guess you won't have the chance to gun me down, but I am sure there will be lots of other people to break out the target practice for.

And if you will read carefully, the blogger was the one being the "complainer", while I am choosing to see the positives in the upcoming months and years, just as I chose to do when Bush was president.

Oh, and it is Fizzygrrl, not FuzzyGirl, thank you.