one truth i have realized, as i drift left-ward

[indictrichardperle]

The gop line about small govt, personal responsibilty, pull yourself up by the boot straps..ie) cut social services and the "safety net"............vs the traditional liberal point of view :

The gop scenario only has merit in a booming economy where anyone who wants work can find it, inflation is controlled and a living wage is paid. There has to be peace and prosperity to even consider the gop version........in today's "war and depression" that is not even worth consideration. You have to have an FDR approach, public works, investing in infrastructure, and stop the run away deficit-endless war quest. People are living pay-check to pay-check and Lush Gumjob is really talking about families living on the street, people who used to be in the middle class.

[JackDragna]

1. They've never believed in any of those things you mentioned.

They'll inflate government to epic proportions if it means building up the military or giving pork projects away in their home states. They'll blame others for their illicit conduct and incompetence every time they get caught doing something bad. They'll take all the government aid and welfare they can get until their cronies give them a free ticket to success. Conservatives spit out things that are amenable to the politically inastute: they don't mean a word of it.

[whathappened]

2. the right rich

do not want to share with anybody , it's there's and no one is going to get any of it from them , i have worked for a few of these fools in life and i just set back and chuckle at these kind of people , no heart and no souls , just money and it's there's

[Warpy]

3. The Bush team bought two fallacies

First, that the Great Depression was 100% the fault of the stock market crash; and second, that the Great Depression was ended solely by World War Two.

Of course, we all know the truth is much more complicated than that, and that serious things were happinging in the larger economy like the concentration of wealth into fewer hands long before the market crashed. FDR's recovery programs, once he'd corrected the initial mistakes, had put people back to work and started the consumer economy circulating money again. WWII may have hastened the end of the depression, but without these reforms, the postwar period would have seen a return to it.

Now fast forward to the Chimp team. The Dow was dropping, jobs were disappearing, consumer confidence was low, spending was down. Their simplistic remedy was to fatten the investing class, which has worked to stabilize the Dow. The trouble is that the economy still sucks, because they've missed the rest of the economic picture.

Their war without end, amen, instead of stimulating the economy as more munitions are made to replace those used, is acting as a drag on the economy, as the government borrows more and more to finance it, while slashing everything that would help the larger economy, including soldier pay (which goes mostly to their families here in the USA, where it will be spent).

Until and unless the disastrous economic policies that have dismantled most of the protections instituted during the New Deal are overturned and the protections reinstated, I don't see this economy improving for anyone but the top 1%, and not much for them.

[indictrichardperle]

5. true

good post. The Iraq war and the resultant deficit may send us into another great depression . How so ? the deficit.....leading to bond market yields rising..........leading to mortgage rate increases....leading to housing market crash.....leading to a weak teetering economy going into the shitter.

[Clete]

4. "...everyone who wants to work can find it."

This is a flawed ideology. Not everyone can work and many may get to the point they can't work before the golden age of retirement. We need to make sure that these people also have access to the things they need for life as well as those who can work.

It wouldn't be hard if the money collected for taxes went back to the people in the form of social programs like health, education and child care, instead of corporate welfare and an endless war machine.

[unfrigginreal]

6. The GOP scenario never has merit

The GOP is guided by one main principle...and that's greed.

The amazing thing about them has been their ability to pit the middle class against themselves. They have somehow convinced a majority of the folks earning $30,000 a year that they are rich, and therefore profit from the GOP's top down tax cuts. We can thank the "liberal" media for that.

[AP]

7. US economy grew the fastest ever in late 40s and early 50s...

...BECAUSE OF FDR'S NEW DEAL, which gave everyone an equal chance to contribute to the economy, and the safety net allowed people to take bigger, more rewarding chances than they'd otherwise have taken.

The New Deal saved America during the Depression, and then made America afterwards.