Rome is Burning

So, what have we learned from the current state of the nation and eight years of the current policies? For one thing, the 90s motto "greed is good" still holds. There has been mismanagement and corruption from the top all the way down. By this I mean all the way to the top of the country down to everyone trying to keep up with the Joneses. I commend Jason Calacanis for acknowledging the coming meltdown and the Enron-style scandal early this year on the TWIT netcast. I also concur with his analysis that Bush is the worst fiscally-responsible president in history and is probably worse than the combination of the next three most irresponsible presidents. We also know the oil companies are completely incompetent or are running a major scam on the public. If Matt Simmons is right, then oil may hit $500, and even he is aware that more drilling is not an answer at all and that the oil companies "don't know their own business" and the Republicans are clueless on energy.

We have also learned that the Republicans are not the party of small government and reduced government spending and they are not the party of non-interference, letting the market correct itself. We have seen the limits of capitalism. Socialism isn't the problem, it may well be the answer. Many people are still locked into the view that socialism is bad and when the individual runs into problems, well, that's the risk of a free-market system. But when large corporations have problems, the government must intervene to support the national economy. There is some truth to this, but its all rigged in favor of the corporations. If the government buys into the financial industry for a trillion dollars and then regulates where the money moves,then that's already socialism. Rather than worry about things becoming "too socialist", we should be extending that direction of thought. We should extend government "interference" into areas like health care, so that all citizens can benefit from the economics of our country, rather than having to support big business but not receive any direct benefits. The truth that conservatives don't want to hear is that the only solution is to tax the rich higher. Someone has to pay to get us out of this mess and the rich are the only ones that can do it. Most of America doesn't have enough money left for higher taxes. What are you suppossed to do when the bully comes back, but he already has all of your lunch money? Even Ben Stein has admitted that taxing the rich is the only solution. Rather than contemplating a flat-tax (which is really a regressive tax, higher on the poor), we should be upfront about the fact that the wealthy in America have it too easy. This is just one more reason that a McCain win of the presidency would be very dangerous for America's future, given his goal of reducing taxes on the top-income brackets.

Lastly, we have learned how absolutely absurd right-wing conservative talk shows are. For the last year they have been saying that the economy is great, lying about unemployment, and stating that the value of the dollar is of no importance and the economy will correct itself (SH). Now they are asking why no has questioned the falling value of the dollar (LI). Even more absurd (in a more humorous way), they (LI & ML) discuss how unpresidential McCain is on economic matters and how he jumps to decisions emotionally and does not take the time for rational consideration. If they can't get behind the idea of him being presidential, I don't know how any of us can. It is certain that he lacks the temperament to be president.

For political debate, I recommend Andrew Sullivan for a non-liberal critique of conservatives, as well as "Count the Lies."