Arizona's New Immigration Law

[Rainy Parade]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

I don't think anyone here claimed that if a wall street business was guilty of fraud, or any other criminal act, that they shouldn't be prosecuted.

fair enough... but the "IF"s in this thread... and the fact that "smaller govt" (ie less/no regulation) is part of what let these clowns run amok semi-legally. i dont claim to know the ins/outs of bank fraud laws and credit default swaps and all that other toxic shit that brought on the economic collapse... and i bet there's not a simple "crime" on the books to be pointed to, but there was a tremendous transfer of wealth from us (the lower and middle class taxpayers) to them (the ultra rich elite) and when the whole thing blew up, our govt (us/taxpayers, etc) gave them another 700 million and counting...... and, as we know, it was Bush AND Obama, a "bipartisan" effort to hand these assholes hundreds of millions of dollars AFTER they'd robbed us all blind. so, it's just a bit odd to see complaints about "the amount of drain that our social welfare structure exerts on the whole economy" as if some poor bastard getting $482/month from the government is the big problem in this country.

another one ripped from the headlines would be the oil spill in the gulf. the Wall St Journal reported that the oil well didn't have a remote-controlled emergency "off switch." i guess no one wanted "big govt" to get involved with telling businesses how to operate so Dick Cheney's energy task force figured $500,000 switches were too expensive to force BP to buy/install. $500,000 is NOTHING to a big oil company... and how much of a drain on our economy will result from that spill?

i realize this is/was an immigration thread and some of you might say these are all separate topics, but my point is that "social welfare" is not near the top of the list of things draining our economy. this myth that poor minorities are handed everything and/or that we're all working our asses off (or posting on WP while at work) so these poor folks can live it up is a bit ridiculous.