read about the big depression? watch this vid

[oldrockfan]

[youtube]EOCNoMMJGSs[/youtube]

If you know anyone who was around during the depression, you should talk to them... Or go online and read about it. Things are starting to look pretty scary.

 

[Voxman]

...

 

[John J]

My father was born in 1918 and my mother in 1922. As a kid I was told about the Great Depression alot. We were always told that we didn't know how good we had it, and we really didn't have that much. That sparked my curriosity about the depression. I read about and watched film from the era. What's going on today isn't too far from what happened then. The biggest difference probably is the fact that today we have the FDIC for bank accounts and unemployment insurance. Without those two things we would be very close to what happened then, just add on the Dust Bowl. Alot of people had nothing in the 30's.
I actually know some nut cases that think the FDIC and unemployment insurance are bad ideas. They think they should be abolished. I think they listen to talk radio too much. They think I'm too liberal.
Hopefully this is a wake up call to us as a society. If we all learn something from this we can get back on track and make things right again.

 

[ESSER]

http://web.investinganswers.com/land/is-your-bank-in-danger-serving.asp?TP=672&ref=ws247


The Next 437 BanksThat Could Fail

 

[Voxman]

Was gonna post that list as a topic but I guess it really doesn't matter much , anyway! :evil5: :dontknow: :cry:

 

[oldrockfan]

yep, when a bunch of those banks start going belly up... better watch out. The gov ensures funds up to 100k in banks but the fund that does it only has enough money in it to cover a tiny fraction of the funds in banks. If we have a series of banks go under in a short time span, the gov fund to bail them out will be emptied. Then either the gov says sorry out of money which would probably lead to widespread panic OR they print a bunch of money to pay for it which would lead to runaway inflation which could lead to even worse panic when it cost $10 for a loaf of bread or $20 for a gallon of milk.

Scary times we are living in. I have a funny gut feeling that the USA is about to go thru some really tough months in the near future. Hope my gut is wrong this time.

 

[John J]

Yup. Scary times we are living in. IMO, that's what happens when you let big business run this country.
We just had a situation around here not long ago where a large corp. got the employees to take pay freezes for the next 7 years. They also got $28 mil. from the state (taxpayers) to keep the plant here. If they didn't get the money they were going to move. Now if they really needed the money to survive the CEO wouldn't/shouldn't be making $6.4 mil annually.

 

[Ne_buddy]

[quote author=John J link=topic=20890.msg252175#msg252175 date=1286374279]
Yup. Scary times we are living in. IMO, that's what happens when you let big business run this country. [/quote]

Aha! You said, "BIG BUSINESS," and I'm so glad.

Nobody says that anymore, though that's clearly the problem. Sometime in the 70s, that term was swept under the rug and people started talking about how bad "big government" is. I don't think governmental "size" is the issue -- after all, there are some things that only groups of people can do -- and government is what we call them. If the problems get bigger, you often need a bigger group. Of course, the group has to operate ethically and democratically, etc., etc.

Some folks seem to think that corporations would suddenly become generous and responsible if only we did away with government. Drives me nuts!

Let me ask, if big businesses are so interested in improving society, then why don't the oil companies take the responsibility of building and maintaining the roads? Wouldn't that benefit citizens and companies alike? Seems as though it would, since you just cannot drive (or buy gas) without roads. But big oil doesn't do it, and it's no wonder why.

What remains a mystery is why our government gives big oil subsidies when they can't seem to maintain infrastructure!

 

[John J]

[quote author=Ne_buddy link=topic=20890.msg252177#msg252177 date=1286378707]


Some folks seem to think that corporations would suddenly become generous and responsible if only we did away with government. Drives me nuts!


[/quote]I agree. What cracks me up totally is everytime you hear about some kind of shennanigans going on at a big corp. the CEO starts screaming that it is his responsibility to look out for the best intrest of the stockholders. That statement is true to a point but if the COE really meant it he wouldn't be taking a multi million dollar compensation package. That money would go to the shareholders. Aren't they the ones taking the risk? Only risk the COE is taking is "will I have a job next year".

 

[oldrockfan]

the CEOs want you to think they care about shareholders but... well lets just say I used to work as a manager at a fortune 500 company. As a lowly manager, I would not normally have access to the high level exec meetings except I was in charge of safety and since we had over 2000 employees at the company, it was a very big budget item. So I attended the exec meetings each quarter. Now the CEO at our company was a very well known guy who I won't use his name but he has also been CEO at some other big corporations. I have to say that guy only cared about himself. He was so freaking arrogant. Just made me sick to even be around the guy. If other CEOs are anything like that guy, the world would be much better off without them. I thought our company was crazy paying that sack of poop 1.5 million dollars a year but I read about these CEOs who earn 50 or even 100million per year and it just makes me want to :roughup:

If we end up falling into a depression, maybe one good thing that could come from it is to re-think how much the top execs earn.

 

[John J]

[quote author=oldrockfan link=topic=20890.msg252189#msg252189 date=1286461784]


If we end up falling into a depression, maybe one good thing that could come from it is to re-think how much the top execs earn.
[/quote] If we go into a depression we'll probably fare better than the rich. Most of them will be hostage to their own environment because they'll be to affraid to venrure out among the common folk. If the value of money tanks they won't know how to survive. Heaven forbid that they won't be able to afford to hire people to do stuff like protect themselves from us.
Company I used to work for got bought out by a much larger one. They basically canned all the management because they didn't like the way they operated. Very profitable to. The new people came in and changed everything. The company suddenly started losing money. Got to the point about every year we would have meetings with a new crew of upper mgt. What a bunch of morons. I (we) especially disliked the attitudes they all had. Like they were Gods gift to the world. They really liked to talk down to us like we were the idiots. The company is barely still in business. Employees had to take big cuts in pay and the CEOs big sacrafice was to keep his bonus at the previous years level.

 

[oldrockfan]

I'd like to see companies cap the executive pay at 1 million total annual compensation (pay and stock options). To pay someone more than that is just nuts imho.

 

[John J]

[quote author=oldrockfan link=topic=20890.msg252209#msg252209 date=1286550889]
I'd like to see companies cap the executive pay at 1 million total annual compensation (pay and stock options). To pay someone more than that is just nuts imho.
[/quote] Especially when you consider the fact that they've got someone(s) else actually doing the work.

 

[Ne_buddy]

I agree that CEO's pay needs to be lower, but perhaps their salary should be tied to their actual performance, instead of their egos.

What I've heard about pay caps is that they have often an unintended and undesireable effect. As soon as the cap is announced, all CEO salaries meet the cap -- even the salaries that were lower than the specified amount.

Of course 1 million is a gazillion lower that what most of the worst offenders have been making. That would be a welcome change.