Could anyone suggest why - because even the most brain-dead

[jtuck004]

person I talk to can see that we have given away the good jobs, are spending on the wrong things, are shoveling money into the investment banks, have unemployment that is likely to stay at high levels for at lest 20 years (there really is nothing on the near horizon), we quit believing in ourselves? Housing and other assets are dripping slowly downward (about ten years of inventory today, and we still have several million foreclosures left to go - and that doesn't include those new loans that will fail as housing continues to move downward). And we are very nearly just watching.

Why we don't insist that we invest in our country and people?. Are we afraid? Surely Obama can see that an increase in jobs would help him and his party more than anything else he could possibly push? I realize he got his funding from Wall Street, hired several republicans to run the Treasury and the Fed. Yes, there was a bill to equalize pay - but now 30 million people are without a paycheck or have such a small one they cannot pay their bills, and I can't believe he thinks that equal means everyone makes $0. We got a health insurance reform bill when they were talking about 35-40 million people without insurance. Now it's 50 million.

The ONE thing that has ever helped this country when we were in such a situation was a huge jobs program which put money in people's pockets and demand in the stores. This is a different age, but look across the pond at China - they are spending billions to put in polysilicone plants (Applied Materials, who likely built the chips in many of the computers here is building one in China as we speak), they are investing in alternative energy with a stated goal of owning that industry in the near future (they may already - companies here are licensing technologies to them because they cannot compete here, partly because they are not worker owned, perhaps). They are spending nearly 3/4 trillion to put a canal in which will bring water from the South to the North, a trip from one city to another is measured in minutes on a high-speed train while the same trip here is measured in hours behind a traditional locomotive. It's a huge WPA-CCC program. We have our own damn currency, we could do this.

Too much debt you say? The path we are on now guarantees at least 20-30 years of the same thing. Won't be that long, of course, because the next big financial hit may well knock us off this little perch we are on. It's time to roll the dice, because we won't be any worse off if we don't.

I really can't figure out when we decided cutting was the way forward and the people weren't worth investing in. I know, I know, the wingers are all-powerful, yada yada. But didn't FDR have opponents? I recently listened again to his speech (thank you ggm) where he "welcomed their hate". Go find it and listen. He actually talked to the people and boldly told them to go. And they did.

(Do we need to search for amber around his grave and grow a new FDR?)

The pubs can take over, it won't change anything - until we adopt a mindset that invests in our country for growth, we are going to continue to shrivel and die...and all those people who came before died for this?

[Angry Dragon]

1. The people in power do not care

They have the money and means to move unto more fertile lands
to rape and pillage again. They care not for the people of this country
we are just a drain on them.

[jtuck004]

2. But. But. There's only about 500 of them.

There's 300 freakin million of us.

Are we just doughnuts?

These people are controlling our lives, and one can read about their meeting (with other Republicans here). And yes, that kind of frozen-smile guy is our one and only Secretary of the Treasury. Doesn't seem to care who he is seen with these days.



and they look way too damn happy.

[Angry Dragon]

3. It is kinda like having a very big party where everyone is invited

only that the ones that organized it only invited the rest so they could make fun of them.
Like a clique in high school where the in-crowd only invites the rest to appear that they care,
but talk behind their back.

[Ghost Dog]

4. Cut social programs and deregulate. Couldn't be clearer.

Where the economists and the lawmakers are in broad agreement is their emphasis on cutting taxes and regulation to spur growth, rather than pursuing additional spending along the lines of the Obama administration’s stimulus effort, a target of Republican attacks.

...

“It’s clear that there has to be a budget reduction, that it should be comprehensive and that it should involve the Medicare and Medicaid programs,” Mr. Meltzer said. “I also think that the biggest single thing the administration and the Congress could do to get the economy back stronger would be to put a moratorium on new regulations.”

op. cit. op.