When the Roman Republic started to crumble, the Roman Senate, instead of acting as a bulwark to the executive power of the Emperor, it stood by inactive, as the Emperors concentrated more and more power in their hards. Instead of adopting Christianity, it remained the last standing supporter of Paganism.
Fast forward to our modern day America and the $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street. As if Executive Power did not expand enough the last eight years under the watch of Dick Cheney and David Addington, as if our civil rights and international law have not been trampled repeatedly by various acts of the Bush Administration, our brilliant politicians are now attempting to expand the power of the Treasury & The Fed.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the House of Representatives only yesterday vote down the $700 billion bailout package because of an overwhelming amount of letters, emails and telephone calls from the American public? Or was this all smoke and mirrors in an effort to look good to the public and then pass an enhanced bailout package on steroids with the additional tax reduction proposals?
And who comes to the rescue? The US Senate. Their goal is to sweeten the bill for the localities and send it back to the House for approval by adding more spending and cutting taxes.
I respect the New York Bankers. They work for their money. But when will the politicians in Washington understand that if a household lives beyond its means, one day the piper will need to be paid. We need production, not consumption. We do not need lower taxes, more spending and an additional borrowing for $700 to provide additional credit. We have been doing this for 8 years. Look where we are now. Dollar down 35%, trade & budget deficits balooning, national debt in all time highs. Yet, we keep watching the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
From my experience, credit is still affluent. I have a good credit score and I spend less than what I make. I never lost a dime for anyone I dealt with. Are banks willing to lend me? Sure they are. Nobody decreased my lines of credit on my cards or raised my interest rates. And I am unemployed!
The problem is that we are exiting a period of reckless credit. For better or for worse (for better I think) credit is not recklessly affluent any more, and that is why it NEEDS to contract. There is some pain involved in the process. The ones who borrowed more than they could afford will feel it. So be it. Nobody put a gun to our head to buy a new European car every 3 years.
But in a classic move of an empire lacking values and seeking valuations, the Senate is moving to support preposterous executive powers for the Fed and the Treasury and at the same time seek more consumption & credit, lower taxes & more borrowing. So, we will go to the Chinese and the Arabs (oh, now we conveniently forgot that these are the bad guys), and borrow $700 billion.
The piper will need to be paid sooner or later. But the Senate is once again postponing it for later. So, let's go ahead, print some more money, derail the value of the dollar until we are cut off from the producers of this world like a drunk is cut off from the bar manager.
Because if we do not decide to discipline ourselves now I am sure that the Chinese, Japanese, Germans & Arabs will do it for us later. And I am fine with the Empire crumbling. People get what they deserve in life... I just hope and pray there is no blood spilt in the process because the punishment would not fit the crime.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
So who is voting for Sarah Palin?
I just finished watching Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Curic on CBS. Correct me if I am wrong but was she studdering when asked about foreign policy issues? And did she really call Henry Kissinger "naive"? Poor Henry! who would have thought that the creator of Realpolitik would be called such names by someone whose foreign relations experience has been limited to waiving to Siberian fishermen off the coast of Alaska...
It would be a nice farse to watch any other politician, even a vice presidential candidate to a younger president, consistently dodge to-the-point questions with some incomprehensible jargon while her (or his for that matter) facial expressions unmistakenly reveal total ignorance about the issues. Yet, as Matt Damon mentioned on his TV interview, the fact that there is a high probability that Sarah Palin may one day be the Commander in Chief having access to Nuclear Codes is absolutely frightening.
I like John McCain. Up to his picking of Palin as a running mate I thought he was a smart, honest, articulate & down-to-the-point politician who was not afraid to break party lines and vote with his consiousness. I would even vote for John McCain under certain circumstances. This choice however is reckless. The problem is that John McCain is old. I am only 29 and as history has shown John McCain was a myriad times more patriotic than myself at my age. But picking Palin destroyed all his responsible patriotism in my eyes, unless of course he knows for sure that he will live through his term (which is impossible). The choice was politically motivated, one to win the election. Get a running mate who is a woman and aspires to the ultra-conservative knuckleheads who populate apparently (and sadly) 49% of this country. It would have been fine for anyone in his 50s or 60s, but sorry John, the risk for the country (and the world) is just too large. You might not care what happens after you leave this world, but I do and that is just reckless and selfish on your part. It was a great political move but one too dangerous for posterity. It would have been definitely more responsible and patriotic to pick e.g. Guiliani or Bloomberg. Think about it: Who do you think that the conservative Republican base would have voted for if you picked one of those guys?
And because in politics we vote not for the best candidate but for the one who will inflict the less damage, the one who will be "best of the worst", the choice is made easy and obvious by the process of elimination. If we elect McCain/Palin and McCain survives through the full term, then we are better than in the Bush years. If we elect Obama/Biden and Obama does not get killed by some lunatic Nazi during his presidency, we are ok agian. Now, God forbid, if either due to natural causes or due to assassination, the president leaves this world mid-term, a Biden presidency would be ok. A Palin one a disaster! I thought that it can't get much worse than Bush/Cheney but the fairly remote prospect of a Palin Presidency is a deal-breaker.
I feel that it's a fairly reasonable conclusion....
Yet, what I don't understand is how the rest 49% of the country thinks! Can someone explain?
It would be a nice farse to watch any other politician, even a vice presidential candidate to a younger president, consistently dodge to-the-point questions with some incomprehensible jargon while her (or his for that matter) facial expressions unmistakenly reveal total ignorance about the issues. Yet, as Matt Damon mentioned on his TV interview, the fact that there is a high probability that Sarah Palin may one day be the Commander in Chief having access to Nuclear Codes is absolutely frightening.
I like John McCain. Up to his picking of Palin as a running mate I thought he was a smart, honest, articulate & down-to-the-point politician who was not afraid to break party lines and vote with his consiousness. I would even vote for John McCain under certain circumstances. This choice however is reckless. The problem is that John McCain is old. I am only 29 and as history has shown John McCain was a myriad times more patriotic than myself at my age. But picking Palin destroyed all his responsible patriotism in my eyes, unless of course he knows for sure that he will live through his term (which is impossible). The choice was politically motivated, one to win the election. Get a running mate who is a woman and aspires to the ultra-conservative knuckleheads who populate apparently (and sadly) 49% of this country. It would have been fine for anyone in his 50s or 60s, but sorry John, the risk for the country (and the world) is just too large. You might not care what happens after you leave this world, but I do and that is just reckless and selfish on your part. It was a great political move but one too dangerous for posterity. It would have been definitely more responsible and patriotic to pick e.g. Guiliani or Bloomberg. Think about it: Who do you think that the conservative Republican base would have voted for if you picked one of those guys?
And because in politics we vote not for the best candidate but for the one who will inflict the less damage, the one who will be "best of the worst", the choice is made easy and obvious by the process of elimination. If we elect McCain/Palin and McCain survives through the full term, then we are better than in the Bush years. If we elect Obama/Biden and Obama does not get killed by some lunatic Nazi during his presidency, we are ok agian. Now, God forbid, if either due to natural causes or due to assassination, the president leaves this world mid-term, a Biden presidency would be ok. A Palin one a disaster! I thought that it can't get much worse than Bush/Cheney but the fairly remote prospect of a Palin Presidency is a deal-breaker.
I feel that it's a fairly reasonable conclusion....
Yet, what I don't understand is how the rest 49% of the country thinks! Can someone explain?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Where is our FDR?
President Bush today called out to the American people to support the $700 billion bailout package for every kind of financial institution still alive. He stressed that this is necessary and imperative to preserve the health of the US economy and prevent it from sinking into a death spiral.
The question is why should we trust President Bush's opinion. This is an administration that lied about more serious issues (e.g. weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) resulting in people dying on the battlefields, an administration that intentionally jeopardized the lives and well-being of its own employees (Scooter Libby affair), an administration that has consistently usurped power away from the legislative branch and one that claims within its inner circles that we are only one Supreme Court Justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade.
Most importantly though, this is an administration that took a budget surplus and turned it into a huge deficit, that has done nothing about the ever-surging current account deficit, one that has stood by while our national debt ballooned. For the last 8 years, this Administration has followed the very principles that Wall street adhered to, and whose price we are beginning to pay right now. Reckless spending, uncontrolled borrowing, cutting taxes while burdening the government budget with more pork. At the same time, we as a nation have been financing our incomprehensible appetite for more consumption by borrowing from the same countries that are selling us the goods (i.e. China & the Middle East). Instead of investing in education, technology & infrastructure, we have been investing in bigger houses & more upscale lifestyles. I think that I was still in college during the Clinton years, that I last heard that we need to support the American producer. Ever since then, for the last eight years, I have been hearing that we need to support the American consumer.
But it is not Bush's fault. It is not Congress' fault. They say that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. We, as a nation, have grown fat & happy. The days of saving and craving something were replaced by larger credit card debt combined with instant gratification. We are more focused on what we will be doing after work, rather than what we are doing while at work. And worst of all, the few of us that work for the government are best at that.
And here is where the politician's responsibility lies. There was a time where the politicians in this country were leaders, not followers. In critical issues, they did not wait for their campaign staff to come up with the latest poll numbers in order to reply to journalists questions without offending anyone. They, just like David Crockett, drew the line, opened the path, showed the way.
When the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration created the New Deal, it had a plan. The investment was in developing vital infrastructure for our country, while creating jobs. The plan was to invest in our education, our public construction, our people and our land. It was not giving handouts to a few (or to many for that matter - remember the tax rebate!!) so that we can spend more on clothes made in China, oil made in Saudi Arabia & visit Paris for a vacation.
We need our own Franklin Delano Roosevelt to get out of the mess we got ourselves into. Sad to say but without a leader like that we might need another War as well. A real one, not one that sends only the "have-nots" to far away lands to die while the "haves" stay back home watering their lawns. So let's pray and hope (and vote!) for our own FDR. I doubt that any of the people on the ballot can rise to his statute, but can we rise to the challenge as a people, or do we HAVE to learn by experience once again?
The question is why should we trust President Bush's opinion. This is an administration that lied about more serious issues (e.g. weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) resulting in people dying on the battlefields, an administration that intentionally jeopardized the lives and well-being of its own employees (Scooter Libby affair), an administration that has consistently usurped power away from the legislative branch and one that claims within its inner circles that we are only one Supreme Court Justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade.
Most importantly though, this is an administration that took a budget surplus and turned it into a huge deficit, that has done nothing about the ever-surging current account deficit, one that has stood by while our national debt ballooned. For the last 8 years, this Administration has followed the very principles that Wall street adhered to, and whose price we are beginning to pay right now. Reckless spending, uncontrolled borrowing, cutting taxes while burdening the government budget with more pork. At the same time, we as a nation have been financing our incomprehensible appetite for more consumption by borrowing from the same countries that are selling us the goods (i.e. China & the Middle East). Instead of investing in education, technology & infrastructure, we have been investing in bigger houses & more upscale lifestyles. I think that I was still in college during the Clinton years, that I last heard that we need to support the American producer. Ever since then, for the last eight years, I have been hearing that we need to support the American consumer.
But it is not Bush's fault. It is not Congress' fault. They say that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. We, as a nation, have grown fat & happy. The days of saving and craving something were replaced by larger credit card debt combined with instant gratification. We are more focused on what we will be doing after work, rather than what we are doing while at work. And worst of all, the few of us that work for the government are best at that.
And here is where the politician's responsibility lies. There was a time where the politicians in this country were leaders, not followers. In critical issues, they did not wait for their campaign staff to come up with the latest poll numbers in order to reply to journalists questions without offending anyone. They, just like David Crockett, drew the line, opened the path, showed the way.
When the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration created the New Deal, it had a plan. The investment was in developing vital infrastructure for our country, while creating jobs. The plan was to invest in our education, our public construction, our people and our land. It was not giving handouts to a few (or to many for that matter - remember the tax rebate!!) so that we can spend more on clothes made in China, oil made in Saudi Arabia & visit Paris for a vacation.
We need our own Franklin Delano Roosevelt to get out of the mess we got ourselves into. Sad to say but without a leader like that we might need another War as well. A real one, not one that sends only the "have-nots" to far away lands to die while the "haves" stay back home watering their lawns. So let's pray and hope (and vote!) for our own FDR. I doubt that any of the people on the ballot can rise to his statute, but can we rise to the challenge as a people, or do we HAVE to learn by experience once again?
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