Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Wall Street on welfare ...

Oh this is so true: ["The Street on Welfare"].
I'm waiting [aren't we all] for the Democrats to get enough stones [any stones] to start regulating the economy again and rescinding some of the bad legislation in the last two decades. Enough of the band-aids. Our nation and economy need major surgery, now.
Despite what the theorists say, regulation is a good thing for long-term economic growth and stabilization. Controlling and guiding the economy is the best thing for the economy and it is the best thing for regular folks. Making everything based on an absolute free market, without any legislative controls, fraud investigation, or policing, is a recipe for corruption and disaster, as we are seeing now. Nothing in the world works on a 20 percent return every quarter. I just doesn't. Their Wall Street goes against everything we know to be true and now we are expected to spend [or print] our money to bail them out?
If the Fed can basically print $200 billion for Wall Street, they can print $200 billion for Main Street. If the Fed can bail out Bear Stearns, the Congress can rescind the Bankruptcy Bill on regular folks [or at the very least, loosen some of the problems with the bill]. Where are the f*cking Democrats? They run the show now and they aren't doing anything but borrowing money against the future for some phony stimulus package. Why are our troops still in Iraq?
Another thing: how come we don't hear any serious questions about the economy on TV, radio, in the newspaper? Why is it only on the Internet that we can read normal folks talking about different ideas to fix the economy? How come someone like Phil Hyde who created the Timesizing economic model doesn't have think tank funds or a college professorship to experiment with economic models? How come Roy Morrison's carbon tax idea isn't debated in the halls of Congress right now? I'm waiting for Tim Russert, anyone, to start asking the hard questions. No, we get, Mr. Kucinich, is it true you saw a UFO? At the same time, more young people believe they will see a UFO before they will see their Social Security benefits! Come on already.
Or, instead of changing laws and bailing everyone out, we can do the opposite: We can let the capitalists live with themselves and let everything crash and we will all pick up the pieces later. Sure, there will be a lot of pain but there is going to be a lot of pain anyway. Look at what is going on. If you don't think there is going to be pain, you aren't paying attention. The key is this: Will the pain by shared? Will the guilded class have to give up their $25,000 desserts now that the rest of us have given up ice cream to make ends meet? Or, is the pain only going to be felt by the ordinary folks?
The great thing about starting over is that you can start over. Call it the great do-over. We can all go back to the Bailey Building & Loan again where everything we do in our communities was interconnected. We can put checks on everything to make sure that the bad guys are kept at bay. We can have a one-strike and you're out for all employees connected to the financial sector. You screw up and hide things, you shovel pig sh*t somewhere and instead, we'll let the ditch diggers run everything because they know how to get the job done. We can learn to sacrifice a bit more like many folks are already doing now, instead of immediately turning to the government for whatever [I'll write a bit more about this later this week, since it has been on my mind lately]. Instead of screaming about the school system because we know the future sucks because of what these people did to the economy, trade, and jobs, we can spend more time with our kids so that they know and learn the values we hold dear.
As an example, I heard recently from an older woman I know who was talking about some of the younger women she knows with kids in school. She said she asked a few of the women what they were doing for volunteer work in the school system, like she did when she was their age. They all said they didn't have time for it. They will donate money for fundraisers, but to a person, they expected the system to fend for itself. They were too busy to donate their time. Now, frankly, he kids probably appreciate their parents not hovering over the school. But the older woman was shocked by what she was hearing. While these women were yelling and screaming about the school system, they wouldn't give their time to make it better. Essentially, they are expecting government to make it easier for them to have the lifestyle they want. It was interesting to hear the perspective of a 60-plus mom, being a 40-plus man and not knowing what it is like to be a 60-plus mom, and the shock she had for others who didn't seem to care enough to make the time.
As we all know, time is more cherished than money or products or vacations or anything else. If you have not learned this, you will. Some have no other choice or do what they can, and that is fine. But trust me when I say that time makes a difference; money just buys things.
And lastly, speaking of sacrifice, I'm still wondering where the national movement is to get behind our troops and learn to live with a little less, like Americans were asked to do during WW II.
I posted some posters of the time period here: http://politizine.blogspot.com/2006/08/where-are-wartime-sacrifices-now.html
and here: http://politizine.blogspot.com/2006/09/more-signs-of-wartimes-in-post-earlier.html
Those people who don't know their history ... or, whatever.
"Rationing means fair share for us all." Fair share? For us all? What commie wrote that? It was the U.S. government! Or, right, we were fighting the Nazis at the time. But the theory still remains, doesn't it? If Al Qaida is that bad, rationing means fair share for us all. No, here's a check, go by a flat panel. Wow.
"Help stop fuel waste." But no, I can't do that, I need a Hummer! I can't give up my Escalade because my dog likes the color [Yeah, that is an actual paraphrased comment from a person I know who heard their boss say that]. Don't ration. Don't save. Spend. If you ration, save, and sacrifice, the enemy wins!
"Should brave men die so you can drive...?" This is a killer, no pun intended. Where is the sacrifice by the rest of us? Where is the sacrifice by Halliburton for our brave men and women? No, they charge astronomical amounts for food and guard the Twinkie truck with mercenaries. Wow. As Ralph Nader has said, if Iraq's biggest export was carrots, we wouldn't be there.

How frustrated are some Democrats? They are considering voting for Nader again!: ["Independent candidate Ralph Nader wins 5%, taking more support from Democrats"]. Nader gets 6 percent with Clinton as the nominee.
Of course, this is a simple argument because Zogby does not allow readers to have all the data. While the press release states that Nader would take support from Dems, it doesn't say how much. They also don't say how many Dems McCain gets, which is another part of the problem for Democrats, a much bigger problem than Nader. Clinton earns the votes of 75 percent of the Dems while McCain wins 79 percent of Republicans. That is as close as we get to the breakdown.
While they don't mention specifics, what is interesting is that Nader's support is broad: 15 percent of indies say they will support him. 12 percent are under the age of 30 [Those idealistic fools, hah ...]. 12 percent deem themselves libertarian while 6 percent of liberals and conservatives support him. 15 percent of progressives support Nader.
In the end, national polling like this doesn't mean anything at all, since the Electoral College elects the president. But if individual state polls start showing Nader movement like this, there could be a problem for the Dems. And this doesn't even figure in Cynthia McKinney who has all but secured the Green Party nomination and will be on many state ballots too. As much as I respect and admire Nader, I think she will be a bigger factor this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Politicians on both parties are actually funded, and supported by those wealthy crooks. They worked for those crooks, not for working class people. Because wealthy businessmen put them into offices, politicians made laws with pro-business flavor and tax incentives, channelling public tax fund back to pay their debts. All mainstream media outlets are also own by mega wealthy businessmen. Thus mis-information, such as the so called "great free market system" but tax incentive is required because corporation is creating jobs...blah...blah...blah, is spreading widely without major challenge. The media picks and chooses the political candidates, manipulates the election outright without fear. For example Kucinich was excluded in all national debates, and Ron Paul was cut off and ridiculed by the so called "fair and balance" Fox News. Majority of people are just too stupid, turning into a mouthpiece, read and repeat the mis-information, propagandas without questioning. It was similar to those so called Evangelical Christian conservatives who often recycled/quoted the Scripture in every sentence like a parrot, and hysterically accepted all the preaching from their preachers/pastors without questioning the hypocrisy. This is a nation of zombies for most people had lost their critical thinking skill and blindly accepted whatever feeding to them.