I wouldn't count on it.  If I could have a dollar for every evangelical that votes Obama or just a dime for every evangelical that votes McCain, I'd choose the second option.

Yeah, McCain's in trouble.  I think he did have one chance to win the election (and it's too late now), and that would have been by voting against the "bail out."

He sure did have a choice.  He could have voted "no."  And so could have Obama.  If I may, I think it was government interference in market activity that caused the Great Depression and our current economic woes.  And more or less both parties equally share the blame both times.

He sure did have a choice.  He could have voted "no."  And so could have Obama.  If I may, I think it was government interference in market activity that caused the Great Depression and our current economic woes.  And more or less both parties equally share the blame both times.

Still in France for two more days, but I found a place to stay with internet connections so that we can watch the debate tonight. 

I have to say that I disagree strongly with your claim that government interference caused the last depression and the implication that no regulation would somehow have avoided it.  The US had serious monetary crises before the Great Depression, and the government has always regulated the markets in some way.  There are very few free marketeers of the kind that we find among libertarians in the US, and most now seem to agree that it was Greenspan's radical deregulation experiment that caused the most recent crisis.  It is true that the government can take action that causes more harm than good, but it is also true that it can cause more good than harm.  Historically, it seems that government behavior under Republicans has trended more in the direction of the former than the latter precisely because they are into self-regulation.  It appears that Greenspan is really angry at the greedy "dishonorable" behavior of the lending institutions.  The man was terminally naive to expect a herd of wealthy people to police themselves and behave honorably.  They are no better than pigs at the trough.  A little smellier, maybe. 

And you should know, since you lived through it. 

Not quite, but my parents did.  Yours did not. 

But all that just goes to show you don't have anymore first hand experience than SJ or me. So your implication that you know better is a bit pompous.

My experience is less filtered than his or yours.  My childhood was spent in the shadow of the Great Depression, which still shaped the attitudes of how my family approached their finances.  I think I know more than you or sntjohnny about such things because I have studied them longer and probably been exposed to real abject poverty in a wider variety of cultures, which most Americans have not.  Sorry if that comes off as arrogant, but I believe that it is justified by the facts.  Older people usually have the advantage of greater experience than younger people.  Not always, but usually.  And I have done a lot of traveling in my life--far more than you or sntjohnny.

I agree.  So why don't you respond to my recent posts instead of wasting your time on 'discourse' with Cop? Eh?  Buddy?

I agree.  So why don't you respond to my recent posts instead of wasting your time on 'discourse' with Cop? Eh?  Buddy?

Sntjohnny finds my experiences less filling but more nutritious. 

My experience is less filtered than his or yours. 

That just means we are in a better osition to be more objective than you are. If time is the measure of how well an idea is, then obviously those farther along are in a better position to judge it.

My childhood was spent in the shadow of the Great Depression, which still shaped the attitudes of how my family approached their finances.

Yours and a lot of other people. Many of whom turned out quite rebellious and ungrateful.

I think I know more than you or sntjohnny about such things because I have studied them longer and probably been exposed to real abject poverty in a wider variety of cultures, which most Americans have not.  Sorry if that comes off as arrogant, but I believe that it is justified by the facts.

I say "pompous" here, and it comes out there.

Older people usually have the advantage of greater experience than younger people.  Not always, but usually.  And I have done a lot of traveling in my life--far more than you or sntjohnny.

Yes, you're very old. As that is all you seem to be saying. However all your experience means little if all you show is that you haven't learned from them.

As I understand it, the Great Depression was caused because of overspeculation.  This overspeculation was made possible by overlending (history seems to repeat itself, eh?).  The overlending happened because banks did not have an objective standard of value from which to judge how much they could safely and rationally lend.  The reason?  Because instead of reserves based on an objective standard of value (gold!), the government had been artifically inflating their reserves with paper hoping to fuel a never-ending boom of liquidity and growth.  Instead they got us the Great Depression.  The current crisis was likewise caused by too much credit, artifically too much credit created at the hands of a bizarre "orgy" between big business and big government.  The problem isn't that there was not enough oversight or regulation, the problem is that there was too much incest.  A free market unhampered by the contrivances of interventionist government and opportunistic, greedy businessmen would not have created such a crisis because it would have had a market-determined amount of credit at a market-determined price.