WASHINGTON, July 22, 2008
Bush: Wall Street Has "Hangover"
President Makes Unguarded Comment At Houston Fundraiser; Says Economy Must "Sober Up"
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President Bush speaks about the economy during a press conference at the White House, July 15, 2008. (CBS)
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He made the comment at a political fundraiser in Houston last Friday after asking members of the audience to turn off their video cameras. Someone obviously ignored his request and a snippet wound up on a blog Tuesday by Miya Shay of ABC affiliate KTRK in Houston.
Bush clearly was in a good mood as he addressed a crowd in a private home. Members of the media were barred from the appearance.
"There is no question about it. Wall Street got drunk," the president said. "That's one reason I asked you to turn off your TV cameras."
"The question is, How long will it (take to) sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?"
He segued to problems in the housing market but said they weren't an issue in Houston. "Evidently not in Dallas because Laura's over there trying to buy a house today." Bush has six months left in office and is expected to return to Texas.
Bush expressed his fondness for Crawford, where he owns a ranch. "Unfortunately, after eight years of asking her to sacrifice I am no longer the decision-maker," he said, amid laughter from the crowd. "She'll be deciding - thanks for the suggestion."
He said he reminded her, "Honey, we've been on government pay now for 14 years. Go slow."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush simply was describing the stock market the way many observers have.
"The president has made this point before," Fratto said. "Markets were dealing with very complex financial instruments, and it's clear to everyone that the markets didn't fully understand the risk those instruments posed."
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See all 88 CommentsAnd gosh, we''ve got an idiot available to explain it to them.
"The question is, How long will it (take to) sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?"
He segued to problems in the housing market but said they weren''t an issue in Houston. "Evidently not in Dallas because Laura''s over there trying to buy a house today." Bush has six months left in office and is expected to return to Texas.
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Gosh, the economic genius has spoken. These preditory lending practices were allowed to flourish on his watch, of course he didn''t want any controls or regulations placed on the banks, heaven forbid. They might not send so much money to the Republican party. We who remember, went through one of these bail-outs in the 80''s with the savings and loans and it cost the tax-payers billions. This will cost the tax-payers billions also because we have had an idiot in the Whitehouse for eight years and a Republican congress for six of those years who just "let it ride."
his head is on the chopping block and he is useing the americans tax payers to bail him out.
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, trying to persuade Congress to approve his rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said U.S. financial market stability is at stake and international investors are awaiting the outcome.
``This is about not only our housing markets, but it''''''''s about our capital markets more broadly,'''''''''''''''' Paulson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. ``This goes well beyond the two institutions -- Fannie and Freddie -- it has to do with investors in the United States and investors all over the world.''''''''''''''''
yep, we the people get f by whitehouse and congress again..thanks to americans not telling congress to get f on this idear. everyone should hold town by town rally,city by city rally,state by state rallys or completely stop working stop buying,stop them in their tracks.
come on america what will it take for you to stand up for your kids and grandkids futures..
for-america@hotmail.com
americans need to tell congress that the same investors that are putting americans on the streets, need to be told that it goes both ways, and americans are not going to bailout the same investors that started this whole thing in the first place
Another Bush quote for the ages. (But we will all be dead so who cares.)
Posted by cbscrash07 at 08:40 PM : Jul 22, 2008
Want to bet if any administration is ever worst then this one it will be the end of the world. Thank goodness he is leaving. I do feel sorry for him because the Republican congress could have put him on a lease and made him move to the middle in 06 now they will suffer the price for their action.
That is one good thing because most of the neo cons that can be reached by the swing voter will be gone after this election.
One wonders if perhaps the Great Emperor has been discussing economics with that great, recently departed of the "Bagdad John McBush" McCain campaign, mind of the economic world, "Doctor Phil" Gramm. After all, it was "Doctor Phil" who had diagnosed that we are all suffering from mental delusions when we drive into a gas station, buy groceries, or see the doctor and are forced to pay "thru the nose" with worthless greenbacks.
It is only natural that the "great" economic minds of "Doctor Phil" and the Great Emperor would now include all those "drunkards" working on Wall Street as well as "dipsy" stockholders who worry about how worthless their paper may get, together with the rest of us "whiners" who have been steadily going broke for the past 6 years!
According to the doctrine of the neocons and "Ferengi" economics, only the wealthy will survive, and you can be sure that both "Doctor Phil" and the Great Emperor Bush II will be among them!!!!
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil, ABSOLUTELY MORE OF THE SAME, McCain!!!!
That Video was on YouTube, it was pulled immediately.
Sensorship or "national security" or "executive privledge" kill it? Interesting
People get confused in here. It was Phil Graham aka
Dr Phil, NOT Phil McGraw the Doctor Phil. :-)
Well, a drunk and a hangover are certainly a couple of things that Georgie-boy should know all about and it''s a rather tasteless way for a "world leader" to describe an economic crisis, I think. He should stick to flinging cow-pies, for fun and sport.
But that is only a small part of the problem.
Wall St. is only a barometer of the relative value of the shares of stock traded on it, and is not in any real way representative of the US economy as a whole.
The real problems are corruption and greed, that has decimated the middle class, employment opportunities are lost to either "outsourcing" to slave labor countries, of to the use of illegal migrants, also working for near slave wages, pressuring the wages of domestic workers down, in addition to the printing of devaluing currency to cover a "war" that never should have happened, and is based on lies and corruption.
In an effort to avoid the blame for most of the problems, Bush is trying to shift blame to only one form of corruption, and even then his party''s aversion to strong oversight and regulation allowed it to occur.
That''s brilliant economic analysis, Mr. Bush. It won''t be long now until the economy pays off your deficit, as you once explained.
That is only a tertiary effect. The crisis was brought on simply because of the decimation of the middle class, jobs were terminated en masse, and shipped to slave labor countries, and domestic employment was replaced by low wage labor from migrant workers, both legal and illegal.
The earning power of the average US citizen is less than 20% of what it was in 1972, thanks to a devaluing dollar. There is no way you can say that this is the fault of "the poor", it is a direct result of the failure of the Reaganesque "trickle down" view of economics, which failed to understand that the rich are just as lazy and opportunistic as the poor, but have much greater access to money which they can corrupt. Even the rich want a "free ride" and the neocons have been more than obliging.
This is evidenced by the fact that even middle class housing, and to a small extent, upper middle class housing, is also falling to bankruptcy and foreclosure.
Your attempt to blame the corruption that has damaged the US economy solely on "the poor" is a disingenuous obfuscation, as it ignores the root cause.
Actually what we are seeing is the logical conclusion to the "trickle down" view of economics, the regressives concentrated the money at the top, money that came from the middle (as the poor have little), but it did not "trickle down" again.
If you are a producer of goods, say autos, for example, and you close the factories, which lays off millions in the auto, and related industries, who is then left who can afford to buy your products? After you then switch your business model, and produce cars that only the rich can afford, what happens when that market is saturated, and they have all the cars they need? Who then do you sell to?
Not to forget to mention that the recently made poor will not take this passively, at some point civil unrest, and socio-economic instability will begin to destroy any national cohesiveness violence, and the consequent anger will take shape along ethnic, religious, economic, and local territorial fault lines. This is precisely what we are now seeing.
A century after the Gilded Age, we see the same pattern of laws and regulations in America favoring a rich economic class. Yet, even the meanest blue-chip CEO today would insist concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few is simply un-American. America''s greatest argument with communism, he will tell you, was the open distribution of wealth in this country, the chance for everybody to get ahead.
That CEO also might add an insight-- distribution of wealth is another word for "opportunity". Even more revealing, the same CEO also will admit that wealth, in the overwhelming number of instances, is an escalator to further economic opportunity. That is, wealth promotes wealth and raises capitalism above communism or any other command, centralized economy.
However, by promoting a concentration of wealth in America, Bush forfeits the capitalist argument about common opportunity and benefits. Bush not only drops the ball for Capitalism with a Human Face, but proves his own regulation of the American system favors the same economic tyranny of which he accuses the communists.
While CEO salaries and perks have become astronomical, take home wages for the average worker have stayed frozen, despite rising prices. The erosion of the American middle class assets continues under a mountain of personal debt, and for most Americans struggling with increased cost for medical and other necessities, Bushonomics is another empty promise-- yes. a lie-- and no gateway to prosperity, at all.
While Bush subsidizes even Big Oil in a time of obscene oil profits, Bush crony capitalism says, "Consumer be damned!" Because Bush tax breaks to a wealthy few burden the rest of us even further, Bush in effect promotes welfare for industry at our expense.
You ask naively about regulation, ignoring the fact Bush and friends already have made sure everything from mortgage banking to consumer lending benefits those with wealth. This Bush regime of perks and benefits, without a doubt, is a form of regulation, too-- only tilting the playing field to benefit those Bush called his political base, whom he dubbed "The HaveMores".
(see "Why, Oh, Why?"--3)
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After nearly eight years of Bush and a national debt nearly doubled since he took office, an economy reminding us stagflation is alive and well, a dollar which bows in relative worth to other currencies, soaring energy prices but with no rational address from Bush-- as though it just might be a crisis-- you ask, "Why do libs always want more regulation?"?
Here is one answer you will understand, and Lord Acton said it best-- "Absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Bush-era capitalism is not the machine Bush said would produce more wealth for more people-- instead, it is the burden and ruin of millions in the failing American middle class.
(see "Why, Oh, Why?"--2)
Really--you should all stop ganging up on G.W.; afterall that was apparently how *** Cheney explained the current state of the economy to him in his daily ''briefing''.
"Not to forget to mention that the recently made poor will not take this passively, at some point civil unrest, and socio-economic instability will begin to destroy any national cohesiveness violence, and the consequent anger will take shape..."
which I believe is the real reason for the "anti-terror" laws. People who are pushed to angry and violent protest against the corporations and elites who have stolen from them, will be labeled terrorists, imprisoned without charges, have their communications monitored... at least that is part of the neocon dream. Hopefully we are stopping them in time.
Your post suggest that you are new to these topics, so I will be nice. Please refrain from posting what is known as "spam", references to other websites that have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Otherwise you will be reported, and after enough reports, not be allowed to post here under the same name again.
-Translation. Oil is now coming down and Bush''s own investments in the market are also down, and he''s upset. Awww. He''s finally feeling the pain of his own lack of judgement for 8 years. Waaaaah.
Your Repukons Cabal and you will be flushed down the Rock-dancing bar toilet, for at least 8-12 years from government. You were too much! You are our shame! STUBBORN MULE!
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Irony.
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