How Could A Nation Get This Stupid?

[...by having an ignorant fool in charge with a majority in Congress
for the first six years of his regime.]

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John McCain?s going to clean up Washington! He?s ridin? that ?Straight
Talkin? Express!? He said, ?we are going put an end to the reckless
conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on
Wall Street!" Before McCain decided greed was taking over the world,
he said the nation?s economy was ?fundamentally? strong. But that was
before someone told him ?strong? was not an apt word to use in
describing the nation?s economic meltdown. Nevertheless, he?s gonna
step in there and he?s gonna kick *** and take names! Sounds great
John, but ?..

Eight years ago ?Mother Jones Magazine? examined Republican Senator
Phil Gramm and his sleight of hand maneuver to get a piece of
legislation passed that was largely written by financial industry
lobbyists. Gramm, an economist, a close pal and a former campaign
manager for McCain?s presidential bid, managed to get all regulations
removed from Credit Default Swaps, which are insurance policies that
guard against losses on investments. Large financial institutions,
such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, used Swaps to cover their
risky loans. Without any regulations the swaps would be paid in case
of default, so who cares? Lend a few million to Ethel?s Brother-In-Law
Maurice who?s got an idea for an underwater, basket weaving farm. If
the tide goes out, the loans insured, so why not lend ol? Maurice the
dough?

Then the large financial institutions started selling debt derivatives
which are like the debt that collection agencies buy from banks for a
few cents on the dollar. They bundled up these derivatives and sold
them with other investment instruments, much like a confidence artist
from the Middle Ages would sell a ?pig in a poke.? Foreign investors
were eager customers. Enter the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that kept
banks, insurers, and the brokerage houses separate. Republicans had
tossed Glass-Steagall out the window during Newt Gingrich? ?Contract
on America? so that the insurance industry, the brokerage houses, and
the banks, were now together, like peas in a pod, or even fish in a
barrel. The bank loans the money, the investment house invests, and
the insurer, insures. Problem is, when the geniuses of the financial
industry brings them together under one roof they find themselves
playing a shell game with one shell. Homer hollers ?DOE!? and smacks
himself on the forehead.

American International Group is the nation?s largest insurer. After
Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers defaulted, and asked for bankruptcy
protection, AIG got caught holding all those Credit Default Swaps it
had written. AIG may have been the next casualty of conservative
corporate dysfunction but Uncle Sam is digging out $85 billion, and
making noises that AIG is TOO BIG TO FAIL. These are the very same
corporate leeches who were the recipients of Junior?s trillions of
dollars in tax cuts. So ends another chapter in the ongoing adventures
of ?Conservatism Vs. The Rulebook? or, ?Why Laws Governing The
Physical Universe Must Be Obeyed.?

Republicans, insisting they can fly, jump off the roof, only to break
their legs and bang up what little is left of their brains. But
undaunted, they?re ready to fly again! All they need is a higher
rooftop to jump from! Then, they?ll really fly! Hopefully, they?ll
find a roof high enough that they?ll never touch down again. ?May the
fleas of a thousand camels descend upon them.? Will the conservative
business community have learned anything from the current, unfolding
disaster? Of course it will. It will learn it can get away with
anything as long as Uncle Sam thinks its TOO BIG TO FAIL.

It?s looking a lot like 1929, or as Yogi Berra, that pithy philosopher
would say, ?Looks like déjà vu, all over again.? Republican
businessmen abhor regulations that get in the way of quick profits.
They hate the government interceding in their business unless it?s to
bail them out of trouble. And do they ever have a knack for getting
into trouble. Driven by that base emotion greed, the corporate, left
to its own devices and freed from government regulations, will screw
up every time. FDR, after he began cleaning up the economic mess he
inherited, got Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act. Republicans
hate him to this day, and dream of turning the clock back before FDR?s
presidency. Republicans can?t rest until FDR?s ?New Deal? has been
torn from its roots, and thrown on the compost pile of history.
Meanwhile, the taxpayer endlessly plods along, paying for the mistakes
that Wall Street and its environs so predictably make.

Newt Gingrich, with his ?Contract on America,? got the Glass-Steagall
Act tossed. The groundwork was in place and it only needed a halfwit
like George Junior to come along and destroy the tax base. As soon as
he drove the nation off that cliff, he drummed up some excuses to get
a couple of wars started that incidentally, no one?s been asked to pay
for unless it?s some grieving parent or widow whose loved one was used
as cannon fodder. As Junior?s dad would say, the nation is in ?deep
doodoo.? And that?s before the economy went West. Of course, many
Americans are masochistic enough to enjoy the beating they?re taking
from their conservative government, and can hardly wait for John
McCain to get the stick from George and continue whipping their dumb
butts.

McCain would like nothing more than to try his hand at ?Trickle Down
Economics.? My golly! He?ll show Americans the greenest pastures he?s
ever seen! As the economy melts down, McCain pronounces himself ready
to privatize Social Security right after he cuts the rich folks taxes
another $2.5 trillion. With all the money going to bail out the Holy
Free Market, McCain will hand the Social Security Trust Fund over to a
happy Wall Street so it can chew its way through those trillions until
its broke, busted and the taxpayers still aren?t disgusted enough to
say, NO MORE! It?s the most astonishing thing.

The markets collapse effected millions of 401K plans that trusting
Americans depend on to provide them a comfortable retirement. The
liquidity of all those 401K?s are invested in a market that is
currently disintegrating. Many of those 401?s have already lost
substantial value. But McCain is inspired by the vagaries of an
unregulated, anything goes market, and believes that handing over the
S.S. trust fund to Wall Street is a smart move. When he?s elected
he?ll represent the dumbest bunch of idiots ever assembled under one
flag.

It could be that by destroying Social Security, and putting millions
of seniors in the breadlines, the nation may pause. Perhaps it may
even awaken, and wonder what the hell happened while it slept. But
it?s not likely. More likely is the probability that republicans will
blame the liberals, and the same Americans who support the
conservatives now will continue supporting them in the future - no
matter what the abundantly ample evidence tells them.

If the U.S. ever regains its former, essential goodness, it will be
because the young demand a return to what was once noble and inspiring
about a great nation. Youth has a way of giving the old a swift and
certain kick in the ***, and it will be served as it shrugs of the
clinging, choking cobwebs of their elder?s advice. Youth, intuitively
knows that many geezers are bound to the past, and they are aware that
wisdom is often thought of as the exclusive province of the aged, when
it?s usually nothing more than a fierce compulsion to cling to
memories, whether they be real or imagined. Conventional wisdom is a
dried up old bone that the so called old and wise ask the young to
choke on. Youth quickly learns to recognize that wisdom is an excuse
to repeat the same old mistakes, and they almost exclusively
understand that the future is theirs, and politely excuse themselves
from the wise council of the soon to be, dearly departed. After all,
even a brief consideration of history is a lesson in human folly.

Jon Faulkner

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http://trudogg.com/bbg/index.html
http://trudogg.com/mccain/
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