Wow did I just get a lesson on the marvels of the internet.

Over the past few months I have been sharing with you some of the exchanges that my cousin and I have made. Well he is one of the individuals where I share or pass on other emails I get from other friends. Some of them are just the funny ones or the ones that are cute, but sometimes they are political. Regardless of what my friends political beliefs I pass them on to all of them. I figure if they are liberal they should see the conservative viewpoint and the reverse. Anyway my cousin decided to respond to one of my emails by sending his response to all the individuals on my forwarding list. Some of them in turn must have send his response on to their email friends.

At any rate some one out there in cybra space responded to him. My cousin immediately assumed that the individual was a radical liberal because the individual not only agreed to what I had said but provided links that supported my statements. Well that was too much for my cousin and as usually began to attack our new friend. I just have to share his responses.

Oh! The topic was the one which I posted that the American economy was in trouble not because of the current president but because of the failure of the presidents of the past fifty years to really tackle the economic realities of the day.

His response after my cousin wondered about his background and why he had responded:

"the only reason i responded was to provide some sources that have substance on these issues. the financial problems facing the country have been 50 years in the making. they are not the result of 11 months of the obama admin policies. we as a country and as individuals have been living beyond our means for too long. relying on the kindness of foreign gov'ts to foot the bill..ie china. getting into wars that we do not want to pay for..the bills for iraq and afganistan are on the feds credit card... the solution to these problems are things that we do not want to hear reduced standard of living, incresed saving etc...

the pete peterson organization is non-partisan. byw, the i.o.u.s.a. video predates obama admin. {EXCELLENT VIDEO my words TD} niall ferguson is worth reading as well..read the "ascent of money" , "the cash nexus" and "the war of the world"
this is a good site too...
http://www.concordcoalition.org/

also this one..read the storm watch section..it predicted much of the financial mess...like in 2006
http://www.financialsense.com/

as far as my back ground? i am1981 grad from st. a's (economics). i still keep in touch with my old profs. some of our recent conversations revolve around the events over the last 18 months. i spent 20+ years in high tech mostly in the storage area (backup, disaster recovery, fault tolerance). worked for several venture capital start-ups. left the industry in 2001 and now i am a private investor. i am a very active options trader. i also do a little consulting on the side.

i like to think i am educated on these issues...i have to be since i have "skin in the game" i read quite a lot and subscribe to all the major business and finance publications such as fortune, bus week, the economist, wall street journal etc...."

My cousin's next response was what was st. a's and accused him of being a radical liberal. His second response was:

"why do you assume i am a liberal? christ i am a self made multi millionaire. i live in new hampshire and the reference to st. a's (st anselm college) is a local school...i thought you were local. anyway, to the afgan and iraq wars, unlike most of the wars the us has fought it is not being paid for as we go (war bonds, war taxes etc. ww2 was paid for this way)..instead it has been put on the federal credit card (thank you bush and cheney)...read a book called "the three trillion dollar war" if interested. it would be a great test if the american public would support say a .50c to $1 tax on gasoline to pay for these wars. btw, i did not say i do not support these war efforts. also, i come from a military family,,my father was a career army officer and fought in three wars...he is buried at arlington. so i have some appreciation as to how wars affect those that actually have to fight them.

as far as the obama deficit goes....wasn't tarp passed under bush? as to healthcare..huge issue. i am self insured and have a private plan with a $5k deductible. but it pisses me off that i am subsidizing those with no coverage. after all if someone gets sick they just throw themselves on the mercy of the system..and they do get taken care of. in other countries (switzerland for example) by law you have to have health insurance...god you have to have in most states to drive a car..."

He also made a separate email to me that pretty well sums up my opinion of the ultra conservatives and their opinions:

"thomas, i just responded to xxxx..i will forward it to you. funny he accused me of being "liberal"...which i am not. i have friends like him that unless you totally agree that obama is the devil incarnate you are liberal. folks like that simply don't read and are not informed..just sacred. (and they should be)
I am a bit of a student of history (both economic and political)..we can very close to entering a 1930s type depression this year....which would make our current problems pale in comparison. indeed we still could. I recently read a book called "the forgotten man" a new book on the great depression. the foreclosure rate in some cities was 80%...30 year mortgages did not exist then..houses were finances with 5 year notes with a balloon...people lost their jobs and could not get a new loan...many of these people had >50% equity in their houses"

He gave me another insight on health care, one I had not thought of, and a greater appreciation of what has and is being done to prevent another 1930 type depression. The scary part is his comment "indeed we still could"

But when you least expect it out of the blue someone else arrives on the scene that not only supports what your gut has been saying but supplies the factual background to support your gut! -)