Interesting quotes...

[Pappy19]

"If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered ... I sincerely believe that the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson

And then this... "Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"
-Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

[444-4D]

So what do we, as individual private citizens, do to stop this once it has started?

[Pappy19]

If you want more socialism, vote more Demoncrats into office, if you like the "old time" capitalism, vote in more Republicans. Very simple really. What I would love to see is another bunch of good conservative Republicans get together and formulate another "Contract with America" that defeated 60+ Demoncrats back in 1994, that's what we need.

[drcampbell]

Like those who brought us the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, blurred the distinction between commercial banks and investment banks, softened up bank regulation and lead us into the current disaster?

Compared to that, socialism don't look half bad.

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What we do now is actually pay attention to politics. Evaluate the results more than the promises. Research the origin of election campaign money and don't get caught up in "lesser-of-two-weevils" or "unelectable" thinking. If you can't find anybody worth supporting, run yourself.

[roofeditor]

Originally Posted by drcampbell

Like those who brought us the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, blurred the distinction between commercial banks and investment banks, softened up bank regulation and lead us into the current disaster?

Compared to that, socialism don't look half bad.

-

What we do now is actually pay attention to politics. Evaluate the results more than the promises. Research the origin of election campaign money and don't get caught up in "lesser-of-two-weevils" or "unelectable" thinking. If you can't find anybody worth supporting, run yourself.

On November 4, the final bill resolving the differences was passed by the Senate 90-8 [7] and by the House 362-57.[8] This legislation was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999

In response to criticism, President Clinton himself stated:

"I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill ... On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence

It's easy to look in the rear view mirror and blame a lot of people. That fixes nothing. Looking out the front window I see this massive spending as borrowing MORE bad debt to pay bad debt?

[444-4D]

Originally Posted by Pappy19

If you want more socialism, vote more Demoncrats into office, if you like the "old time" capitalism, vote in more Republicans. Very simple really.

I've been voting for republicans and it hasn't been doing any good.

What I would love to see is another bunch of good conservative Republicans get together and formulate another "Contract with America" that defeated 60+ Demoncrats back in 1994, that's what we need.

I had high expectations for that but it was a failure too.

[DirtFarmer]

I think that it was a pretty darned big success. From heritage.org:

The ten items in the Contract were all acted upon in the first 100 days of the new Congress, which is what the signatories had pledged. Nine of the ten items in the Contract passed the House: Only the constitutional amendment on term limits (which required a two-thirds vote) was defeated. Out of a total of 302 roll call votes on issues related to the Contract With America, the conservatives prevailed on 299 of them. A balanced budget amendment passed in the House by a 300-123 margin but was subsequently defeated as it fell one vote short of the two-thirds needed for passage in the U.S. Senate. The overall margin by which the items in the Contract were passed averaged about 70 percent despite the fact that the Republicans only held a 12-seat margin over the Democrats (52-48 percent, the smallest House majority margin in 40 years). Given the notorious lack of party discipline in the American Congress, the passage by a large majority of nearly all of the items in the Contract was a remarkable achievement.

I'd love to see another one come around.