**Patriotic Retirement**

[Gussie2000]

Ever stop to think that the current financial mess is nothing more than a predicatable cyclic trend?

Sure, a lot of good points were made in this thread about cause & effect (although it did degenerate into a lot of generalizations that should have been left unsaid).

The consumer based economy had gotten so inflated that it HAD to deflate or burst. Cmon, does a city the size of Fredericksburg, VA really needs 3 super WalMarts, 1 Target & 2 super Targets, 9 McDonalds, 5 Burger Kings, 5 Wendys, 48 grocerie stores, 22 auto parts stores, 16 new car dealerships, ... ?

You certainly right about this cycle trend,you see the big corporations in their effort & greed quest to gain more in the market kept "expanding" their portfolio to states & cities where in certain situation they doesn't even need them there,so instead of saving those billions of dollars of capital funds they sort off that spending more will help its stocks @ wall street grow more & faster,sometimes it works,sometimes not & that's what happened to GM opening plants nationwide instead of reducing operation costs on a timely manner,getting rid of brands that doesn't sell any often as before such as oldsmobile,saturn,volvo & saab instead they decide to keep spending just to keep ranked as the biggest manufacturer in the US.Now GM got to reduce its cots because they @ the point lossing not only the gained rank,but almost to disappear

[VCrossfan]

"You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The Government cannot give to anybody anything that the Government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is surely the end of any nation's future."

Abraham Lincoln (not sure if Abe wrote it or Adrian Pierce Rogers)

[HOT_WASABI_JUNKIE]

We are all commie pinko bastards!
Why...
We all drive VX's ...Those were made by the enemy right...
Japs!
We can save this great nation by turning in our faggity looking Vx's and getting something made in the good ol USA!
A nice big lincoln Navigator..it's about as good on gas as a VX but you can put much bigger woofers in the back!
Now that's American!

This country is hit the skids from on thing and one thing only...8 years of having Bush in office. All the crap we are recovering from was from his poor and ineffective management. 911 was on his watch, he had CIA documentation prior to the attack but hey, was way more important to be reading "my pet goat" to schoolkids that day. Katrina happened on his watch, the mortgage meltdown....That was on Bush's watch also.

Republican's love to shift the blame, but the fact is the blame falls squarely on their shoulders...you voted Bush...Good for you brainiac! Now live with the results!
If you think Obama is gonna turn 8 years of governmental retatrdation around in 3 months I have a pork project to sell you.

I also blame the American dream of owning a house for our current financial problems.
So many mortgage brokers selling no money down loans for houses to people who bought into the lie that property is always a good investment.
How many of us were sold on the idea of home ownership since childhood!
Do you really blame the masses of people for buying into it? The notion of a white picket fence and a backyard is powerfully seductive. It is the American Dream..... But like most dreams..you have to be asleep to believe in it.
I also think Americans are at fault for having an attitude of we are #1!
Are we? We have slipped behind other countries in education, infant mortality,economics, and most of all, overall happiness of our citizens.
We are the only country without a healthcare system that includes everyone,
We are recovering from a president who favored religion over science!
Now some of the world has surpassed us in the medical sciences because we were sandbagged by that retard Bush.
I know some of you are gonna be quick with the 'love it or leave it" BS.
Well I do love the USA...I have lived in Hawaii and California and have traveled through most of the lower 48 and for my money this is one of the most beautiful and wonderful countries on the planet. My beef is with the old school who thinks that this country has to be an empire....that we have to be the world police....All the cash we spent blowing up and rebuilding Iraq could have been better spent here.
Here is to better times!

[nocturnalVX]

Next, on the subject of union bashing, maybe we should abandon what unions gave lives for and go back to child labor, 16 or more hour work days, and work 6 or more days a week mandatory with zero benefits, no worker safety laws and live in the company town, in company housing that you will be charged for, and buy from the company store ending up with little or no savings. That is if they will hire you based on your ethnicity. Businesses routinely hired Pinkertons and other private security to beat and kill union organizers while police stood idly by. Now they have the police and national guard doing that job on occasion.
I hope nobody believes that businesses gave anything to unions out of the goodness of their heart. Everything is negotiated. A general way of putting it is that both parties give things up to reach a settlement. Now the Administration wants the UAW workers to give up wages that they negotiated while keeping businesses' side of the negotiations intact. NOT FAIR! And is it fair that UAW workers should reduce their standard of living to match that of a semi-literate former dung farmer, south of the mason-dixon line who THINKS he won the lottery because a foreign owned company is paying half of what he should be making?
How is it that until the decline in unionism, early 70's, That one man could support a family without the wife or kids having to work? A lot of so-called "skilled workers" conveniently forget that they got their college education through union employed parents paying the bill. THE UNIONS OFFER A MAN OR WOMAN A DECENT STANDARD OF LIVING and EQUAL REPRESENTATION and PAY!!!. That is what it is about.

Very well spoken! Some things have not changed that much...

I work (a union job) in a city that forces it's employees to live within its borders. Home prices (in decent areas of the city) are much higher than better homes in the suburbs. We have the highest sales tax in the nation, income tax is going up 50%, and benefits are going down. Employees are forced to take unpaid days off (while politicians get raises) because the government can't figure out that you should not spend more than you take in. Not only are jobs being given away to private firms that staff people (quite a few that can not even speak english) making a fraction of the money the people they are replacing did, but some positions are simply not filled or elliminated. Luckily, I work where most of these kind of things can't take place because of safety issues. I can not afford to work for free. What would it be like if the unions could not negotiate?

Politicians (Democrats or Republicans) and rich CEOs don't care about the little guys as long as they are raking in the $$$. The city, state, country, or business is in the red and failing? No worries... take it from the little guys!

I am single with no kids, but (even though I am paid well) I have very little financial cushion. My house is worth $60,000 LESS than it did 3 years ago when I bought it. I can not immagine trying to raise a family of 5 like my parents did. There is no way! Do it on one income so that a loving parent can be watching over the kids... ha! So, TV & video games will teach the little ones while mom and dad are working 2 or more jobs just to get by. That is... until the boss finds out it can be done cheaper in China/Mexico/India/wherever, and he can double HIS profit. Then they are screwed...