[wmbwinn]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

1) your preoccupation with "subprime" shows your lack of understanding of the economic crisis we find ourselves in. subprime class mortgages have never been the largest block of loans made, and it is only a part of the issue. debt swaps, derivatives, off balance sheet lending, arms...

google "bush ownership society" and educate yourself.

2) the tax cuts coupled with huge deficits contributed to an overstimulated economy, along with cheap money and easy leverage. the result is a breakdown in the markets.there's an inabilty to understand true value of assets.

we'll know in the next few quarters if the increase in money supply is going to solve the issue, at this point it's uncertain.

one thing for sure, there's going to be a huge bill due when it's over.

and a large part of the blame for our country's situation falls squarely on the lap of the bush administration.

The mortgage crisis was the cause of the breakdown in the economy. Pointing out that there were more categories than the subprime category does not change the point really. Bush had nothing to do with the causes of the mortgage crisis.

As to the ownership society, from Wikipedia:

Ownership society is a slogan for a model of society promoted by former United States President George W. Bush. It takes as lead values personal responsibility, economic liberty, and the owning of property. The ownership society discussed by Bush also extends to certain proposals of specific models of health care and social security.

History
The term appears to have been used originally by President Bush (for example in a speech February 20, 2003 in Kennesaw, Georgia) as a phrase to rally support for his tax-cut proposals (Pittsburgh Post - Gazette, Bush OKs Funding Bill for Fiscal '03, Feb 21, 2003 Scott Lindlaw). From 2004 Bush supporters described the ownership society in much broader and more ambitious terms, including specific policy proposals concerning medicine, education and savings.

The idea that the welfare of individuals is directly related to their ability to control their own lives and wealth, rather than relying on government transfer payments, is a longstanding one, particularly in British conservatism.

In a modern form its implementation was developed as a main plank of Thatcherism, and is traced back to David Howell, before 1970, with help from the phrase-maker Peter Drucker.

In political practice under Margaret Thatcher's administration, it was implemented by measures such as the sale at affordable prices of public housing to tenants, and privatization.


[edit] Ownership and control
As formulated by the Cato Institute (see original quote and external link below), the desiderata are that

patients have control of [decisions on] their personal health care,
parents control [i.e. have power over] their children's education, and
workers control [i.e. have some responsibility for the investment of, or explicit property rights in] their retirement savings.
Here the comments in brackets are an interpretation or paraphrase, consistent with a generalised idea of ownership. The conceptual link here is by means of the idea that private property, the most familiar and everyday form of ownership, is being extended. Control is closely associated with ownership in that sense.

This Cato Institute formulation is not, however, in terms of positive policies. It is more accurately a definition of ownership by taking the state out of the loop. So, for example, in health care ownership is not being defined just on the basis of informed consent.

There is no real originality, politically speaking, in the connection made between individual ownership of property and political stake-holding. This was an idea discussed in Europe and America in the eighteenth century. (For example that the franchise should only be for property holders.)

The novelty of the Cato Institute formulation would lie in the extrapolation. In the case of savings, for example, the extension would be an assertion of property rights in money held in savings or collected tax revenues.

The first desiderata was part of John McCain's campaign platform as the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. McCain's website says, "John McCain believes [that] the key to health care reform is to restore control to the patients themselves."[1]


[edit] Political consequences and unexpected consequences
Consistently with the basic tenet, proponents of an ownership society usually support inherited wealth, and oppose inheritance taxes and wealth taxes. They are also likely to favour a pattern of property ownership based on the purchase, rather than rental, of accommodation.

The consequences for health and education are heavily dependent on details of implementation. For example, ownership in one's child's education, for a parent, might be in the form of an education voucher, a vote in the running of a school, influence on the school curriculum, or a generalised 'right' to have a child educated in line with one's own values.

One example from the UK of an unexpected or unintended consequence of government policy favouring direct share ownership, through some oversubscribed privatisation issues, was the holding of small parcels of shares by individuals numbered in millions. This broad-based ownership created an administrative overhead, for example in relation to every shareholder vote.


[edit] Quotations
We Conservatives have always passed our values from generation to generation. I believe that personal prosperity should follow the same course. I want to see wealth cascading down the generations. We do not see each generation starting out anew, with the past cut off and the future ignored. - John Major conference speech 1991.

...if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country. The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America, and the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country. - President George W. Bush, June 17, 2004

We're creating... an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property. - President George W. Bush, October 2004. [2]

Individuals are empowered by freeing them from dependence on government handouts and making them owners instead, in control of their own lives and destinies. In the ownership society, patients control their own health care, parents control their own children's education, and workers control their retirement savings. - Cato Institute

Many people don't have the time, inclination, or expertise necessary to take full responsibility for their own well-being in areas that are so complex as assuring they have sufficient income for retirement or choosing a health plan appropriate for their circumstances. - Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

...the key to health care reform is to restore control to the patients themselves. - John McCain's campaign website, 2008

Now, I see nothing in the idea of an ownership society that we can blame for the mortgage crisis. Bush nor any other conservative said that we should give houses to persons who can't afford them.

If you want to research the policies of providing housing mortgages to persons who can't afford them and who could not obtain them under the usual rules of credit qualifications, then your research will take you back to Bill Clinton. The changes to assure mortgages were changes instituted from the top in that time period with Freddie and Fannie Mac buying the bad paper in a form of guarantee.

Bush and McCain both warned of the impending crisis and a Dem Congress ignored them...

Is Bush at fault for not doing more in regards to the running of Freddie and Fannie Mac? I won't argue with you if you make that stance.

But, it is disgusting how the people than ran Freddie and Fannie left with millions in bonuses (not subject to the AIG 90 percent tax rate on bonuses) and joined up on Obama's Cabinet/staff/etc. throughout his administration.

The ideal of providing houses to persons who could not generally get them was a Democrat party push and creation.

The idea of an ownership society is not an idea of the government giving people ownership that they can't afford...

+++++++++++++++++

2) the tax cuts coupled with huge deficits contributed to an overstimulated economy, along with cheap money and easy leverage. the result is a breakdown in the markets.there's an inabilty to understand true value of assets.

we'll know in the next few quarters if the increase in money supply is going to solve the issue, at this point it's uncertain.

one thing for sure, there's going to be a huge bill due when it's over.

I have several problems with this statement...

1)an overstimulated economy????
You think that an overstimulated economy caused a market breakdown due to altered valuations in products/goods/etc???

Bush's tax cuts came in response to 911 economic contraction, the later crash/contraction of the spring of 2002, and the later difficulties associated with high oil prices...

There was no over stimulation. That is a crazy idea.

2)But, if we follow your logic and accept it, then you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. You are calling the stimulus package an increase in money supply. Again this is flawed logic, but I will follow with you a minute. If the stimulus package is an increase in money supply, then it will "over stimulate". Same logic for which you assailed Bush...

3)Now, the stimulus bill is not an increase in money supply. Most of it is scheduled to be released gradually over time. Most of it hits in 2010 to 2011. That is funny since the optimists in the system think we will out of the recession by then.

It is also not an increase in the money supply to print money and the Fed admitted they were printing a new one trillion dollars. That is a false increase in money supply which spells "over stimulation" (to use your logic) and produces inflation eventually if not sooner.

It is not an increase in money supply to borrow money and spend it. That doesn't work in your own home economics and it does not work anywhere else either.

The only entities that create true new money/wealth are industry and enterprise in the market.