Yesterday I had to drive to our cabin in West Virginia where I'll be the rest of the week. It's a four hour drive and the weather was perfect. I had a chance to examine why I'm not getting anything done around the house these days, and I suddenly realized that lately the political and economic news has been almost addictive.
The auto industry. When GM and Chrysler faced crushing deficits our financial system was reeling and could not lend them the money they needed to survive.
The Republicans screamed, "Let the companies fail! That's how markets are supposed to work." The Obama administration, however, realized that if GM and Chrysler failed, hundreds of other companies that supported the auto indutry would fail, and we would have an economic meltdown, so the administration bit the bullet, ignored the Republican's anger and scorn, convinced Congress to lend GM and Chrysler the money they needed to survive, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back.
This highlights the major difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats make policy based on what is best for the country and Republicans base their policy decisions on what hurts the Democrats the most. Letting GM nd Chrysler fail would have insured the economy would crash insuring that Obama the Democrats would have been toast in 2012.
The Republican primaries. WOW!
We saw Tea Party leader Michelle Bachmann flame out in spectacular fashion almost immediately. I didn't expect that. Since then we've seen some truly pathetic human beings briefly climb into the lead, (Trump, Cain, and Gingrich), we saw another Republican star flame out in even more spectacular fashion (Rick Perry - really, Texas, this is the guy you keep electing governor?!), and now we're down to three hugely flawed candidates who have little chance of ever becoming President (let's face it).
What makes the Republican primary so satisfying is that the candidates have been falling all over themselves pandering to the party's base which are among the most radical, regressive people in this country. If they could they would turn America into a Christian theocracy, destroy the safety nets for the poor, cut the federal workforce in half, end public education, and make Israel the 51st state. Who knows what they would do for an encore?
So why am I so happy? Because the radical right has pushed the pendulum so far to the right that the American people are finally coming to realize that the Republican party wants to actually destroy the America we know, and take it back at least a half century, and those who are paying attention are aghast. If it weren't for the huge SuperPACS who will support the Republicans no matter who the sorry candidate is, I would predict that Obama will win big in November, probably take the House back, and maybe even keep the Senate in Democratic hands. I think the pendulum is going to swing to the left in Obama's 2nd term (it can't go any further to the right).
Which brings me to poor Greece. From my admittedly imperfect knowledge of the situation, if any European country deserves to be miserable, it is Greece. They cooked the books and lied about their debt situation for years. They also had a culture of evading taxes (not unheard of some countries but the Greeks took it to whole new level).
So Greece was a rogue and its irresponsibility could end up sinking the Euro, and causing damage to economies all over the world. Now the rest of Europe is demanding that the people of Greece suffer greatly for it.
But I want to know how Greece got away with this irresponsibility for so long? Surely the European Central Bank and those investors who accepted Greece's economic figures should have been savvy enough to spot the huge flaws in those figures. These people are experts at sniffing out lies, and protecting their client's interests. I also think that severe austerity is not the answer. How can people and businesses pay taxes (revenue which is badly needed) if they have no jobs, no money? When people lose everything, they have nothing more to lose. That is tinder for violence and even revolution. The whole European economic crisis will be an interesting story for months to come.
My sympathies lie with the Greek people who are really suffering. If you want to revive Greece's economy pump money into it, get people back to work, make the country attractive to tourism, and then make sure the people and businesses pay their taxes.
--Trakker
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