Tag Archives: bush

Bailing Out the Super Rich

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My brother asked me the other day why I bother arguing with my dad about politics. “It’s not like you’re ever change anyone’s mind.”, he told me. I tried to convince him that I couldn’t speak for my dad but I wasn’t married to my ideas. I like to argue, but with every argument, you have to go in accepting the possibility of changing your mind. But he’s got a point about discussing politics in general. The majority of people, left or right, are incapable of critical thought and only repeat bland cliches they heard from someone else. Conceding defeat on even one topic is tantamount to rooting against your own football team. It seems like political discussion has replaced theology in the practice of mindlessly rattling off articles of faith that have no actual connection to the real world.

For example, Hillary Clinton just lately got caught in a huge lie with with surprisingly little effect on public opinion. I used to think you’d have to be insane to think you could get away with having an affair while in public office, but that’s downright reasonable compared to thinking you can get away with lying about getting shot at. Before Clinton even became the nominee, I laughed off Rush’s accusation about Hillary being a nominee, thinking no party could be so stupid as to allow the Clinton Drama become center-stage in American politics again. Now Rush is asking Republicans to fraudulently vote in Democratic primaries for her (suppossedly to maintain “chaos” but more likely because he is sick of 8 years playing defense). I understand Clinton lost a few points in the poll, but if that “gaff” can’t pry her out of the race, what on earth can?

But the real reason I bring all this up is the economy. That seems to be the one issue that Republicans always use for everything (probably because no one believes in the social issues of the 50’s anymore). Democrats tax and spend. Democrats are socialists. They want to “redistribute the wealth” and waste resources on “nation building.” Never mind that the last Democratic administration gutted welfare, passed NAFTA, and created the first surplus, “leftists” like Clinton and Gore are still said to want a “command economy.” Never mind that people who work for their money pay more taxes than those who make money off their money, or that the top 1% is receiving the largest share of national income since the first year of the Great Depression. According to them, money is only “redistributed” downward.

But by bailing out Bear Sterns, Bush has proven that he believes more in socialism than Clinton ever did, corporate socialism. Now, before I get accussed to “hating corporations,” I should point out that you can’t blame companies for asking for money any more than you can blame hobos. Companies are run by a board of directors who are obligated by their job description to make the most amount of money for their stock holders. So of course it’s no surprise they want to “capitalize” going up and “socialize” going down. But the problem is, they are the ones who caused this mess. Its deregulation that allowed Enron to destroy the job market in Texas and now its allowed banks to scam all these people out of money they didn’t have, and once again, the super rich that owns 90% of the wealth of this country got pissed at the middle class writing checks they couldn’t cash and are now refusing to invest the money that runs our economy. According to conservative and libertarian philosophy, we shouldn’t be bailing anyone out, but the problem with that is volatility. As unethical as it is to reward rich fatcats for failure (something Bush learned in his oil business days), it does stop the cascading effects from hitting the rest of the economy, which is why deregulation doesn’t help anyone.

I hope by acknowledging the banking system as our corporate masters and not wanting the economy to go into choas, no one reads me saying we should bail out Bear Sterns as a betrayal of my own principals. I don’t like playing Monopoly, but when the players break the bank, it’s better to start dishing out paper money. What upsets me more is that there is no new regulation standards that accompany them, because that is the only thing that is going to stop them from doing it again. Now that we’ve shown that we reward risk-taking by paying them whatever they lose at the slots, the banks will now be emboldened to gamble away the taxpayer’s money knowing we’ll bail them out again the next time it happens. I’d much rather see something like Stupidity Insurance for banks, but unfortuantely, this is the game we’re playing now thanks to the Conservative/Libertarian dream of a perfect self-regulating market system.

Then there’s gas prices. Bush complained that it was Clinton’s fault gas was at $1.64 and promised if he was president he would “jaw bone” OPEC. That’s a pretty funny description considering the “tough talk” amounted to saying: “If it’s possible, your majesty, consider what high prices are doing to one of your largest customers.” Actually, the mullahs are right on this one. It isn’t their fault. Supply and demand have little to do with what’s driving up oil. It’s speculation. Bush starts talking about attacking Iran, but doing that would cause oil to go up to $6, so speculators price oil up to $3 to hedge a bet even Bush isn’t stupid enough to call. This could be supplimented by opening up 1% of the strategic reserve, not only bringing prices down but making a profit for the government at the same time, but that’s not going to happen because oil companies like it this high.

So my big question is: what excuse do Republicans have? They have had over 7 years in power with both the Senate and the House on their side for the majority of that time. It seems to me, you have to come to 1 of 2 conclusions: either the presidency and the Senate have little or no effect on the economy, in which case the #1 Republican issue has been nothing but empty words all along, or Republican policy was in fact the cause of it and Right-wing Libertarians have traded away all their social issues for the economy we now have. I’m proud to call myself a Liberal but have never considered myself a Democrat. Still, if I did, I would be embarrassed if the Democrats were in power right now and would refuse to vote for them in the next election. Republicans, however, seem completely unaffected in their own convictions by the financial downturn.

This brings me to my point: is there any good reason to try and compare the effectiveness of economic philosophy with the current economy, or is it there always going to be some excuse that divorces philosophy from real life? Is economic theory really just another form of religion, something that’s pointless to talk about because no one is ever going to change their mind on something their parents told them when they were kids?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Politics/Story?id=4141964&page=1

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/03/08/in-2000-gop-trashed-dems-over-gas-prices/

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/15772329/detail.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/29/business/income.4.php

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=736148

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31krugman.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17krugman.html


Corporate Socialism

Hang the Socialists!

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I hate hearing about how all the news programs except Fox have liberal bias, and suppossedly always has been, although I don’t remember ever hearing that when the only news for an entire year was about Bill Clinton’s penis. The reason tv news sucks is because its really only entertainment now. Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are non-stop news stories that I just sick of. The fact that internet news is vastly superior in that you can choose what to read, and this is becoming more obvious now that the news channels are constantly talking about them. I really don’t care about “General Betrayus” or the fact that the one time someone other than a Ditto-heard started listening to Rush Limbaugh’s show, they were able to catch him repeating the words “fake soldiers” after a caller said them. I also didn’t care that Obama doesn’t want to wear a pin of an American flag that was probably made in China. But this is too far: After a family with handicapped children went public about how a government-funded health care program helped them after their children were injured in a car accident, a new right-wing smear campaign seems to have materialized, and is now lambasting them for being “rich.” Bill O’Reilly is constantly griping about the “hate speech” on the Daily Kos, but nothing he’s shown compares to what’s being posted on Redstate.org:

“If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. … I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I’d do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info.”

“Hang ’em. Publically… Let ’em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens. Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies will think twice.”

Umm, yeah.  I’ve never read anything quite that extreme on the Daily Kos. (Although then again, I never saw the doctored picture of Bush that O’Reilly constantly hyped on.)

Personally, i’m all for taxing people to help sick children, and i’m also for taxing the hell out of cigarettes, but combining the two doesn’t seem particularly logical to me. But regardless of whether the bill right or wrong: I can understand emotions getting high over sick and dying children; I really don’t understand why people can get so angry over cigarette taxes.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.frosts10oct10,0,2541063.story?page=2

Political Links

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Bush’s Pre-9/11 Plan for “Regime Change”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1221.htm

Poll Shows That Iraqi Civillian Death Toll Could Top 1 Million

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/150907toll.htm

How Karl Rove Swiftboated Ann Richards

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/dont-mess-with-texas/1345/

Lowdown on the Republican Debate

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/09/06/gop/

Nukes Accidentally Flown Over U.S.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-bomber_thurssep06,1,6510396.story?coll=chi_breaking_500&ctrack=1&cset=true

Getting Out of Iraq is “Not My Job” Says Gen. John P. Abizaid  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000293_pf.html

Runaway Greenhouse Effect

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1076886120070917?sp=true

Nuclear Power is Earth’s Friend

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/better-planet-nuclear-wind-power

Bin Laden in Hell

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I wish people would just get over 9/11. 3,000 people died. Compare this to the 40,000 Americans who die every year from traffic accidents. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have died because Clinton bombed Sudan’s Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant on flimsy evidence that it was making nerve gas for Bin Laden. Hundreds of thousands have died in Latin America from brutal dictators who received support from the Reagan Administration. Around 1,700 died from Hurricane Katrina and another 200,000 people lost their homes. Over 30,000 people have died in the Iraq war, 3,700 of them Coalition troops. Far more people have died because of the American alliance with the Baath party that went long past the Cold War, the Iraq-Iran War, and even the Gulf War, after which Bush Sr. authorized Saddam to put down a Shi’ite rebellion that may have otherwise toppled him. Mispoken words by Bush Sr. also triggered a Kurdish rebellion, one in which he also allowed Saddam to put down, killing somewhere around 50,000 to 100,000. The U.N. Estimates that 450,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict, perpetuated by a country that gave Bin Laden sanctuary in the early 90’s (something Saddam never did) until we bribed them to send him to Afghanistan.

All that gets forgotten until we got hit and then suddenlly its we, the poor disenfranchized Americans who need “Infinite Justice.” The same slaughters that we bankrolled are now used as proof that we’re good and he’s evil. Almost half of Americans think that the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans should be restricted. We seem to talk about going after Muslim leader in the Middle East, except of course Bin Laden.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6729916/

McCain got cheers at the Jack Bauer-Ronald Reagan commemeration ceremony known as the Republican debate after saying he would “follow Bin Laden into hell,” but when Obama said he would follow Bin Laden to where he actually resides, Pakistan, both Hillary and the Republicans jumped all over him! How dare he actually suggest that he might go after the perpetrator of 9/11 if he received “actionable intelligence”! Doesn’t he know that Bin Laden’s name can only be used with empty rhetoric? I mean, following Bin Laden into HELL is one thing, but Pakistan??

Now, I realize it’s not all that easy. Pakistan does have the bomb, and invading might indeed cause enough instability to depose Musharraf and put some Islamic radical up in his place, but this is the kind of debate that we should have had 6 years ago. Back then we had an army that wasn’t completely broken and could have done something about it.

Now we’re debating over whether we should stay in Iraq for an unmentionable amount of time. And yes, I realize that the Bush Administration should not themselves be discussing time tables, but that gives absolutely no excuse for all Neo-Cons to follow suit and refuse to even talk about the future. I would have a lot more respect for people who think we should stay in Iraq if they just gave some kind of number, like, Iraq is worth x number of years and y amount of dollars, and base these ideas off of what we can realistically do.

After hearing Cheney talk about America getting into a “quagmire” if it invaded Iraq in ’94, I started to have the sneaking suspicion that the Bush Administration knew all along that the war would go on a lot longer than “six weeks,” as Rumsfeld suggested. That would explain why Bush, almost at the same time, finally brought out the Vietnam comparison that people had been using so long. (His take on it? We should have stayed. “We” being those who didn’t dodge the draft by joining the National Guard and then going AWOL.) But if that was the case — if they knew the war was going to be 5+ years in the making — why did they pay so little attention to important details like disbanding the Iraqi army?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/21/wcheney121.xml

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/managing/2007/08/28/iraq-vietnam-nato-biz-cz_0828oxford.html

But the truth is, the people defending the war are pure idealists. They don’t want to even consider things like troop levels or time tables. To even suggest we should have benchmarks and accountability is cowardly. They just want to “win” as if one day everything will change and we can leave. This simplistic worldview has ensured that the soliders dying for us in Iraq have not died in vain, but rather, have died to help bring Al Qaida into Iraq and provide a diversion for the war on the Afghanistan/Pakistan front.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/washington/18intel.html?ei=5090&en=88f5f1a45c8422d5&ex=1342411200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1186087111-DZ7zdk25uBS4RUKo0CYnHA

The Islamofascists are Coming!

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This is an interesting article on how Conservatives tend to think that Islamic terrorists like Osama Bin Laden are somehow going to invade America and turn it into a Muslim state. I myself have noticed how frequently I have to remind conservatives that even the Nazis, the Japanese, and the Soviets were never able to build up enough resources to even attempt such a concept, and they had, you know, an army. And a navy. And an air force. Yes, I know it’s all shocking, but those sorts of things are necessary to even attempt to completely conquer a global superpower like the U.S. The terrorists are in for a long walk if they’re really going to “follow us home” as Bush insinuates.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/13/simon/index.html