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Amen.

Please note that I say this simply as an observation, and not in the least bit with any intention of insult. But reading these posts gives me the feeling of watching blind supporters of the republican party. Blind to the death. To me, it doesn't matter that you support the republican party, or the democrats, or the green party. What irks me is the need to provide support to a president with the lowest approval rate in the history of the US. (Or at least he'll have it by the time it's over)

Sort of feels like I am seeing the same blind support as castro followers show. Based on the color of the flag rather than the situation at hand. Basically, I am unimpressed by any of this, I find a real need on this site to place blame when the type of posts you should be showing are the ones like the Dave Ramsey post.
Think about it, from out here, your staunch opposition to everything castro, and democrat, just seems like the flip side of the coin.

Blind, staunch, irrevocable, ferrous, iron-clad, no holds barred, unbelievably naive supporters all, the leader(s) you support are interchangeable. It seems that fate has brought you to the opposite sides of each other, but I see no difference between you when it comes to tactics, thoughts, and implied convictions.

I have been reading your blog for a while, I think you guys are all around good people, but I also see a lot of good people in Cuba who have for one reason or another, landed in the spot opposite to you. But you are all the same. Oblivious to anything other than the need to support your perceived cause.

Is there a chance that this could start a true dialogue? I would hope so. At the very least, it would be interesting. I included the URL to my blog, it is very low on traffic, but I am not looking for traffic, so you are welcome to remove the URL from this post. I really just am curious to see if this can be debated democratically.

I am open to a private discussion by email as well.

Topapito

Topapito, if you look at the evidence, we are where we are at because Democrats refused the reforms requested in the 90s and 00's by Republicans. The evidence is irrefutable. Now, if we ARE blindly supporting someone, this just happens to be one of those times when we are both blind AND right. Peace. --scott

Topapito:

You disguised your true agenda quite well, except for this:

What irks me is the need to provide support to a president with the lowest approval rate in the history of the US. (Or at least he'll have it by the time it's over)

If youll take the time to peruse the posts shown here today on babalu and for the last few days, YOU WILL FIND NARY A SINGLE MENTION OF PRESIDENT BUSH, AND, MOREOVER, IF YOU FIND ONE THAT DOES IT WILL MOST PROBABLY BE IN CRITICISM.

You state you are "unimpressed by any of this." Fine. I am unimpressed by you and your agenda driven calls for "dialogue".

There are plenty of cigars out there that are just as good, if not better, than any now being made in Cuba.

Fuck off asshole.

Well said Val - now this story about about Dodd & Frank has to spread accross the country and the voters. I am sick and tired of these liberals pointing fingers and not taking some of the blame. Great job guys!

I USED TO LOVE THIS SITE WHEN IT WAS ABOUT CUBA, NOW IS ALL FREDIE MACK FANNIE MAY DO IT IN VEGAS AND ALL THAT GRINGO CRAP !

Is it me, or do Liberals have an acute ability of not being able to except blame? Fucking assholes, all of them...These same fucks are the ones who are calling F Castro the greatest leader of the world...please! Let's let the Ocaca win, it will grant us Republican leadership for the rest of our lives, if there is still a country left.

Many, if not all, of the people who contribute and/or comment on this blog have come out quite loudly against Bush and/or the GOP plenty of times. Most of us are Reagan Conservatives and get a tad testy when our party or our president stray from those values. The idea that anyone here toes the party line without question isn't just ridiculous, it's pathetic.

Topapito,

I'm going to give you my perspective. I am a Republican because that's what it says on my voter registration card but beyond that I'm a conservative. The Republican party is supposed to be the conservative party and the Democrats are supposed to be the liberal party. But you know as well as I do that it's more complicated than that. There are conservative Democrats and there are actually liberal Republicans. President Bush is conservative on some issues and not so conservative on others.

We on this blog have been highly critical of president Bush when he's done liberal things like the education bill and the medicare drug program. We've criticized him when he nominated Harriet Miers. So for me it's not about always defending Bush. It's about always defending my beliefs.

The fact is that the underlying idea of the CRA is a liberal idea. Creating and mandating GSEs like Fannie and Freddie to carry out the work of the CRA is a liberal scheme. It's not a free market if two government entities control 50% of it. Period. There's no arguing that this is a conservative idea because it's not.

If we are talking about so called independent organizations that are actually an arm of the Federal Government then you can bet your sweet bippy that I'm for more regulation of them. Regulating GOVERNMENT activity (as opposed to private activity) IS a conservative principle. Conservatives believe that if left unchecked, government will grow and grow and become more wasteful and inefficient. Fannie and Freddie prove this argument to be true. They used the GSE euphemism into fooling people into thinking this was private business but as we have seen, it's the Federal government's responsibility.

Now, who was predicting this all along? Conservatives, that's who. Not liberals. They were happy. Conservatives were concerned. President Bush was concerned since the very beginning but to his detriment he didn't make a big enough deal out of it. Greenspan warned of this. McCain and others warned of it. And who said there was no problem? Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Gregory Meeks, Maxine Waters. See the trend there buddy boy?

I think Bush has shown an amazing lack of leadership on this issue but I also recognize that he's been severely wounded politically because of the Iraq war which I totally supported and still support. That's the price of poker. He chose where to spend his political capital and he has to live with it. That doesn't mean that he can't stand up and assign blame where it belongs.

BTW, remember I said there are liberal Republicans. They are just as guilty. They went along with Clinton in 1995 when he made the CRA much more than what it had been and set the ball rolling.

Got it?

Peter, there's only a month or so until the election. Hang in there.

Hey thanks Val, I am not surprised by your response. But frankly, my agenda was exactly what I said it was. The name calling is typical, you planning on sending over the "brigadas de respuestas rapidas"?

Thanks for proving my point. BTW, I am now, and continue to be a cigar smoker, and I totally agree with you that the Cuban cigars are both overrated and over-priced. If you take the time to read through my blog, you would handily see that I do not now, or ever recommend Cuban cigars.

The sad thing is that I can't bring myself to agree with neither you nor the Cuban government. You both are pretty much the same. "Recalcitrantes".

By the way, check out the definition for "dialogue" in the regular dictionary, not the "Cuban" one. I know the Cuban one says a dialogue is between Castro and the exiles, but I do not care to get into that one.

See how easy it is to control your emotions? I do, and so does the Cuban government, they have been doing it to you for years.

Go ahead and block my comment, in Cuba they would do the same. It's called repression. "an island on the net without a bearded dictator", the dictator on your island, is not bearded, but a dictator just the same.

There really was no other agenda than to start a discussion. I am (amazed/disappointed/but not shocked) you ran so quickly from it.

topatipo,

Just one quick - and I mean eye scorchingly quick - perusal of your "blog" was enough to convince me of your insincerity, disingenuouness, naivetee, and just plain stupidity on the subject of Cuba and her politics.

Do you think youre the first to ever think "Hey! Here's thought! Let's start a dialogue with Cuba! That simply MUST solve all of the problems! Dialogue! Wow! Im a freaken Genius!!!!"?

Get real, you moron.

I can tear down your dialogue argument in one simple, short and concise question: Who, exactly, would we be dialoguing with?

Answer very carefully now, else your idiocy might show.

Also I would like Topapito to address my response to him.

Val, I am glad you responded. Your animosity though, still shows.

YOU are the one who jumped to dialogue. Now, answering carefully, the dialogue I meant was right here, on your blog, or through emails. Between concerned people.

Please do some thinking before speaking yourself. Also, turn off your automatic "I hate castro" machine. I, contrary to your lightning fast opinion, am of the belief that negotiating with castro is futile. I also happen to believe that he is a clinical psychopath who has escaped the diagnosis because of his position of power. In a normal country, he would have been in a loony bin, or in a jail for some stupidly thought out murder, or who knows, had he not won his position, he might be writing a hateful blog in Miami shooting vile words at whoever did win it.

And of course, it does not take a genius to realize that you don't know me and you are just reacting to someone invading your island with a comment that doesn't rhyme with the Miami rhetoric.

Again, you keep reading the Cuban dictionary. Here's some news, you and your cause are not the center of the world. There is life outside of Miami. Believe me. Also, and this will come as a surprise I am sure, everything is not black and white. So the fact that I don't come in here agreeing with everything you say doesn't necessarily mean I don't want the same thing you do, it just means I have another perspective, one that may or may not interest you, granted, but your calling me names and telling me to fuck off and accusing me of imaginary agendas isn't going to erase my perspective. But debating it may enlighten us both.

My blog wasn't meant to impress you, just a place where I vent. And of course, you must admit you did not read it. You sound more like a communist than you may care to admit. And of course, these comments will send you into a rage and you'll call me more names, and tell me I am a communist, and a few more labels, but you'll only look worse.

I meant a discussion amongst us, if you'll have one. You may not like what I have to say, but you can show your readers that you are a true believer in democracy and freedom of speech and show your ability to welcome dissent or disagreement. Else, you'll look like the very same thing you claim to hate.

Give yourself a chance to have a discussion with me, I guarantee you you may even enjoy it. And I promise you will discover that deep down, we pretty much want the same thing, freedom for our country, the castros to die soon, and the possibility of a normal life in Cuba.

I promise you disagreements, but also friendship. I don't care if you are a diehard conservative, or a flaming liberal. I like interesting discussions and arguments. I like to dream that we can someday achieve real freedom in Cuba. But your reaction sorta makes me think we can't. So why not discuss? Castro? He's a non-event now. But unless we change ourselves, we'll never have what we want.

Go ahead, call me names. I don't understand why you feel threatened. You have nothing to defend. Your opinion is yours and all I asked for was a discussion. Quit acting like a child.

Topapito:

I wrote this post. You wrote a comment and I answered. Why not forget Val for a moment and answer me this, what is wrong with how I responded? Why won't you debate the assertion you made that we're defenders of everything Bush?

I understand why Val reacted the way he did, because you come in here with preconceived ideas about us and you're totally wrong on the facts. So why don't you respond to what I wrote?

Henry Louis Gomez, my apologies for having generalized. (By alluding to Bush as being the one you defend) I have to admit several things to you. I am not an American, nor am I knowledgeable in US politics, at least not like you. I have never analyzed on what side of the scale I would fall, I seem to be a conservative on some issues, and a liberal on others.

I am a businessman first, I like the president who I feel is going to benefit my business. A very selfish attitude I admit, but still my attitude. Right now though, looking over the pond from where I sit (in Madrid), I happen to like Obama or Ocaca as you guys comically refer to him. But again, I am heavily biased by my business' health.

I can't argue with you about whether the conservatives were right or wrong, I am sorry, I have to defer to your obvious superior knowledge. If I were to look at what you state, you would obviously be right. Though your description fits more into my style because you did not simply draw the line between democrats and republicans, you went further and gave it color by describing the roles that liberals and conservatives play in either party. Never quite had this put into this perspective. I find that extremely interesting.

So after reading your post, would you tell me your opinion of Ron Paul? I was very impressed with his history and especially his values. Having read what little I have read about him, he seems to be almost right down your alley, except maybe a little too far?

Would love to hear your opinion of him.

Val, have you ever thought of adding a forum?

Topapito,

The nature of politics in the U.S. like any country is long, complicated and full of contradictions. Most people don't fit in a one-size-fits-all box.

But in general there are two prevailing political ideologies in America. Conservatives and Liberals. But there are many issues. Some people are conservative on some issues and liberal on others. So then one has to rank the issues in terms of importance to oneself. For example, there's a lot of things I'm liberal about. I'm a big advocate of free speech. Some people are going to ridicule me for saying that because I routinely ban people from commenting on this blog. But this blog is our property and one has a right to do on one's property whatever one wants to do. I have no problem with people saying whatever they want but I don't have to give the forum to do it. Some conservatives would ban certain types of music or video games. I wouldn't.

But for me the issues I'm most conservative about are economic issues. I believe in private property, I believe in private business, I believe in free trade with countries that practice free trade, etc.

There's a fundamental disagreement between conservatives and liberals about what the role of the government should be. And specifically what the role of our Federal or national government should be and what the states should regulate for themselves.

Conservatives believe government has a tendency to get bigger over time and more abusive and more expensive and less efficient. Conservatives believe that all of our rights come from property rights. And money is property. The more the government taxes the more it takes away your property. Our country was founded mainly because the colonists in America were very upset about high taxes being charged by the King of England for which they saw very little in return.

When it comes to business conservatives want the U.S. government to get out of the way.

Liberals see government as a means to obtain a more just world. They see things they don't like such as poverty and they want to use government to remedy those problems. But to do that they need to take property (money) away from some to fund it. But government programs don't run themselves. They need employees. And over time huge bureaucracies are built up and the only people that seem to be helped by the existence of these programs are the people that work for them

And that's what this whole financial crisis is about. Some liberals felt that blacks and other minorities did not have enough access to loans to buy homes. They passed laws and created agencies that would force banks to lend to such people even if they didn't have good credit. They created two companies that were supposed to be independent of the government (but never really were) to buy such loans so banks would write them.

Over time the banks wrote more and more of these loans because the two Government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) would buy them. Soon the GSEs acquired HALF of all the loans in America. It wasn't just minorities with bad credit getting loans it was all types of Americans getting loans for houses they couldn't afford because the government provided incentives to relax lending standards.

Conservatives predicted disaster because people were getting loans they couldn't afford to pay back. Since there was so much easy credit out there people began buying up houses. The prices of houses boomed. And then one day people began defaulting on those loans. Their houses were foreclosed and as the houses went back on the market the supply of houses began to increase. That caused the artificially inflated price of houses to drop. And then more people defaulted, etc. etc.

Now we have a huge crisis. The politicians that were responsible for the mess who were liberals that were trying to do a good thing, want to blame the president because he's been in power for 8 years. But if you read the posts here and around the internet (I posted items from the New York Times not just conservative bloggers) you'll see that this took a long time to reach the crisis. It started back in 1977 and was made worse in the 1990s. Nobody wanted to say anything because people were making tons of money. But some people did say something.

Bush said something though he didn't say it forcefully enough. McCain said something but nobody listened. Obama never said anything. In fact Obama is linked to community groups like ACORN that received federal money from this whole mess. One of Obama's advisors was the CEO of Fannie Mae, one of the GSEs I'm talking about. He personally made 90 million dollars.

The liberals want to claim that this was a failure of capitalism. The truth is that it was a failure to be capitalist. We allowed the government to take over 50% of what had been a private industry and it's costing us all now. The bailout plan is $700 billion dollars. A billion in the U.S. is different than a billion in Spain. A billion here is 1000 millions in spain it's a hundred million. So we are talking about a problem that they say will cost Seven hundred thousand million dollars. 3/4 of a $1 Trillion.

If you really want to learn our opinions I respect that. But your original comment was insulting and very stereotypical.

Like I said these things are complicated.

If the laws and agencies that caused this had never been created some people would not have been able to buy loans. But the price of houses would have been more reasonable and we wouldn't have a crisis today that could destroy the entire economy.

Henry, I feel I have to add this to my recent post. Please keep in mind that I bring the perspective of the ignorant to your site. We humans tend to generalize. It is most certainly wrong, but we do it anyway.

Having said this, have you thought how we, the uninitiated, view Val's reaction to my posts? preconceived ideas? Yes, you are absolutely right, I am guilty of having formed an opinion by reading this post. But we are actually making a mountain out of a mole-hill.

If you re-read my post carefully, and I do admit it was miss-guided of me to use Bush, but the actual idea was to point to the blind support of one side or another without consideration of other angles and opinions. Again, I am a pragmatist, as well as admittedly selfish. I support the side I believe will further my personal cause -- wealth.

Notice I am not being bi-partisan. Democrats and/or liberals, mainly, humans are adept at offering their support blindly to a particular cause. I firmly believe that is the one human trait that has kept castro in power all these years. Our inability to actually be objective.

Topapito,

When it comes to the economy and what the government's role in it should be, I have very strong opinions. That doesn't mean I don't know the other sides arguments. I know them and I reject them because they don't hold water. The little academic qualifications I have (a bachelors degree) are in economics. But it doesn't take Ph.D. to recognize what happened in this crisis. The whole purpose of this post was to thank God that we have the internet because we can now read the articles from 5, 10, 15 years ago and see how this happened and who was REALLY responsible. The New York Times is not a conservative publication but they published several articles that predicted the potential for this crisis and the people who dismissed the danger are quoted. Some of those people are today the chairmen of the committees that oversee the banking industry. They of course don't want to take the blame for their wrong decisions when they can blame an unpopular president. Even if you think Bush was wrong about the war doesn't automatically make him wrong on everything. And the fact is he tried to reform this problem almost since first took office. But the people who were making the rules were taking huge sums of campaign contributions from the GSEs they were supposed to be overseeing. Those people were largely (but not all) liberal democrats. Again, I've posted the videos of them verbally attacking Armando Falcon who was trying to alert congress to the problems.

Go back and read the posts George and I have written over the last few days about this. Click the linked articles, watch the videos. Listen to our radio show tonight. We have a journalist who wrote a five part series about this crisis.

As for Ron Paul, he's what's known as a libertarian. A libertarian is mix of conservative and liberal. They tend to agree with many conservatives on the economy and agree with liberals on social issues especially with regards to civil liberties. A lot of young people were energized by Paul's position on a lot of issues and I like some of what he has to say. But a lot of it is kooky and not realistic. We're never going to be able to roll back the government to the size it was in 1789 when the constitution was ratified. Paul also has some personal issues such as articles that were written in a newsletter he published that were racist.

No Henry, a billion in Spain is one million million. In the US it is 1,000 million. Here, we call that, mil millones. One billion in Spain, comes after adding 1 + Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Million, Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Nine.

In numbers, it would look like this:
999,999,999,999 + 1

In the US, one billion looks like this:
999,999,999 + 1

You are correct.

The bailout plan is for

Siete cientos mil millones de dolares.

Thank you Henry. To be honest with you, I am sort of embarrassed by having been the object of a deviation of this post. And I must say that I am convinced by your argument. I am well aware that it could not have been Bush who ruined the economy nor caused this collapse. But you know that the manager on shift always gets the blame. I really dislike Bush. But I am seeing this whole thing in a new light. Thanks.

Your explanation has hit a chord with me. It just makes sense. Until I read your post, I thought that the real estate crisis was mainly created by the banks fueling the market increases by writing loans on houses that were not really worth the sales price. Now I know WHY they did it.

Your description has put it into perspective for me. Heh, who would have thought that I am now an expert on this real estate fiasco?

You guys should really consider opening a forum. It would kind of allow for discussions like this in a much more sane order.

Once again, my apologies for this interruption. What is your take on the oil prices? My tendency is to blame the Iraq war. Obviously, NATO isn't by any means a saint in this situation. I am surprised the world powers have allowed this oil monopoly to flourish. Let's not even get into Chavez and his castro education.

BTW, a Spanish newspaper wrote an article about the level of penetration that castro has into the Chavez government. Scary. If you would like, I will send you the link.

Would love to continue this by email with you. You have my email.

Of course, I am much more interested in Cuba's future than I am in the US. Were it not for the influence the US has over the world economy, I would totally ignore the US.

The banks were producing loans that was a huge demand for. The demand was coming from two gigantic government sponsored companies that don't initiated loans but buy them after they are initiated. and since Fannie/Freddie didn't care what kind of loans they were the banks were happy to sell them all they could.

It wasn't a case of free markets gone crazy it was a case of gigantic government interference in the market. But you are right, the manager on duty gets the blame. But it's very important that people understand what truly happened because we're going to put the people into power whose thinking caused it all.

As for the price of oil. I think a big part of it is that the dollar is down. We import 70% of our oil and when your currency is down that means you need more of it to buy the same amount of stuff.

There's some speculation in the market and many people have also shifted their investments into commodities because of the financial problems. The more people want to buy oil futures the more they cost.

Would not the liberals fall into the same category as socialists? From your description, it certainly seems that way to me. Just seems more like a politically correct way to call an American Socialist. Maybe I am more conservative than I thought. Still would not vote for McCain though, not that I could vote, but, just saying. :-)

The creation of the GSE's you mention certainly sound like pandering to the populist crowds. Reeks of socialism if you ask me.

And BTW, I can certainly agree with the points of this post. Without the internet, I can barely see how the truth ever got out, probably never did. A hardy amen to this post.

Socialist is a dirty word in American politics. If you accuse a liberal of being a socialist then you are branded as a McCarthyite. But yes in the European sense of the word (not the Cuban sense) they tend toward socialist solutions.

McCain was not my first, second or third choice as nominee of my party. But he's the nominee we got. I am begrudgingly supporting him and will vote for him but only because the alternative is repugnant to me.

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