For all of their tough talk, the driving force behind the conservative’s motives seems to be fear. They are afraid of everything. Come to think of it, this explains why they love guns so much; and the military; and really big bombs; and border fences and alarm systems. They assume that everyone is out to get them, their family and all of their stuff. The burning question then is “why?” Why are they so scared? They are armed to the teeth, in an alarmed house, behind a locked and gated fence, ... Read Full Story
As the current recession drags on into its 15th and 16th months there are a lot of predictions about when it will bottom out and when the recovery will begin. Optimistic estimates have the recovery beginning in the later half of 2009. Pessimistic estimates put it well into 2010. What no one seems to be asking is what engine is actually going to pull the economy out of this recession? Read Full Story
The painfully obvious realization that is finally dawning on policy makers and the public as well is that the financial sectors the major Western nations are far worse than anyone expected. It is now pretty clear that the efforts to save the financial system by using healthy companies to buy the failing ones on the cheap has only resulted in bringing down the healthy companies. Read Full Story
Part of the reason the economy has been in an 18 month free fall is because economists and politicians have been unwilling to acknowledge the root cause. This unwillingness is due in part on not wanting to destroy the myth the G.O.P. has created around Ronald Reagan and Reaganomics and in part the on conservative economic struggle to invalidate the liberal economics of John Maynard Keynes. Getting out of the free fall requires rereading some old economic textbooks. Read Full Story
Is it true that Congress spent less time debating (had less problems with) the decision to go to war in Iraq than with this stimulus plan to help Americans? If so, is it so much easier to decided to take lives than it is to spend money? Does this mean that Americans are only capable of counting costs in terms of dollars? Read Full Story
