Posts Tagged ‘economics’

The more I talk a look at what’s going on with our Congress, spending ourselves further and further into debt, the more I realize how politics as usual has run its course. Unfortunately, our elected leaders seem to refuse to accept this and keep trucking on as if their political extremism is doing everything but killing this country in a slow and agonizing manner. Democrat Nancy Pelosi has, in her time as Speaker of the House, gotten away with suppression of debate on at least two occasions, all seemingly out of spite for the Republicans and so she can accomplish her goals on her time schedule. Today’s Democrats, as well as a large group of their supporters on the Internet, seem to be more concerned about lording over their current control rather than about actually getting what really needs to be done done. They’re bullying everyone, including moderate Dems, just so they can get their way.

My fellow Americans, this should not be.

Such behavior is destructive and is doing more harm than it is good. Instead of doing what needs to be done, such as bringing the people who have mismanaged OUR money to justice (Congress included), each individual Congressperson is more concerned with looking self-important and pushing an agenda rather than trying to actually make a real difference. This is why we’ve had multiple bailouts so far, none of which have worked. Congress, in their black-and-white tunnel vision, has lost sight of the ever useful proverb: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

An aside on the bailouts: if the problem is that money is being squandered, does it not stand to reason that throwing more money at the problem will only result in more money being squandered? And isn’t that what we’ve seen happen from the companies like AIG who have been bailed out? The bailout has only served to pour a firehose on the problem of mismanaged money by allegedly smart but apparently greedy people. There should be prosecution, not deluge after deluge. Take the buckets away from the people who are pouring water into the boat.

Returning to the original point: a mindset of “we are right; you are wrong, and we will slap you around until you agree with us” has been causing pain, not healing. What little Congress has managed to get done has only proven to be either a waste of time or, worse yet, worse than the disease it was intended to cure, much like a prescription pill’s side effects. Our country is dying, both in terms of domestic security and in international perception, and why? Because we are letting the political extremists take over.

We are a far cry from the level of political extremism as seen in other countries in the past, where political dissidents were silenced permanently for disagreeing with what was happening. However, it is not unlikely that the United States could well get to this point, though I don’t know how soon. But we can change our course, and we still have time to leave this highway to peril. We haven’t reached the last exit yet. But we’ve got to start changing things now, and we have to do it by insisting that those who are hellbent on pushing their own agendas, those who are determined to be divisive and bullies rather than uniters and peacemakers, those who are extremists should leave office. We do not need people like them in charge of us! Whether they are liberal or conservative, it doesn’t matter; speak with your vote and tell them where they can go (hint: not Congress). The time for extremism is over. If America is to survive at all, we have got to let go of our egos and our selfishness. And we have got to let go of those who know nothing but to be egotistical and selfish.

These days, people love to blame others. Regardless of whether they got themselves into a mess or not, we in this country love to point the finger and everyone but ourselves. From the time that we are kids trying to get out of being punished for breaking the lamp to the time when we are adults who can’t accept their own stupidity, Americans love to say “Wasn’t me.” This can be a bit of a problem sometimes, though, as when everyone’s trying to pass the buck to someone else, it can often be confusing as to where the buck really stops. It often leads to what the Queen of Hearts did to the card who painted her white roses red…everyone gets punished for it regardless. This ducking of responsibility even goes as high as our government.

No one wants to step up and take the flack for the semi-debacle that is the Iraq War. Bush doesn’t want to admit he sent our soldiers off on flawed intelligence, the CIA doesn’t want to admit that their intelligence was flawed, and Congress doesn’t want to admit that they allowed Bush to go to war. Same way with the economy. No one wants to take responsibility for causing our economic downward spiral, not the government, not the financial companies…not anyone. And so we have the bailout.

I’ve mentioned this before, but AIG and all the rest MISHANDLED THEIR BUSINESS. They made bad deals, gave out bad loans to people who can’t pay them off anyway, and gave out huge lines of credit like they were giving money to charity. They screwed up. Why now are people perfectly content with letting these companies pass the blame and the consequences onto the people of the United States?

Despite my best hopes, the bailout…excuse me, “rescue plan”, is still alive because the Senate passed the bill 74-25. This is quite the turnover from Monday’s 225-208 rejection by the House. Whether it was because of the record drop on Monday or the rebound the day after, but mostly because of the media pounding it into people’s heads that the failure of the bailout was a tragedy, enough Senators were swayed to bring life back into Frankenstein’s monster. And just like Frankenstein’s monster, this bailout is going to wreak havoc on our towns and cities…through our wallets.

We are refusing to hold the true culprits for the mortgage and house crises responsible. We are refusing to point the finger at the banks and credit companies and saying, “You mismanaged our money. We demand accountability from you!” Instead, we are letting the same “don’t blame me” culture that sparks frivolous lawsuits put a gun to the head of our economy. We are letting ourselves fall in the very trap that President Thomas Jefferson did everything he could to prevent us from getting into…becoming overly-reliant on the rest of the world. Jefferson’s “let alone” policy lead us to an era of unparalleled expansion and strength, and it was in those times at the turn of the 19th century that forged a fledgling country into a world-effecting nation. In the last half-century or so, however, we have undone everything that was done in the first century and a quarter to make us strong, and now we have become as dependent on the world as the world has been on us.

We have allowed this country to become weakened all because we can’t take responsibility for our own problems. To compensate, we have to get ourselves involved in everyone else’s problems so no one recognizes just how screwed up we here in America are getting. The way to begin getting ourselves out of this hole begins with realizing that we are our own worst enemies. Not terrorists, not socialism…the problem lies with us. Once we own up to that and decide to clean up our own messes, that’s when the US will begin to regain not only its internal integrity but its relationships with other countries…relationships that we forged while we were learning to be a self-reliant republic. And one of the first steps to that is to go to the people responsible for the mortgage crisis and telling them where they can go and what they can do when they get there with what uncomfortable object.