wally in miami

It's Too Late for Tax Cuts, Now's the Time To Increase Government Spending

The author is right on. WW II ended the Great Depression as the WPA and other programs were too much fanfare and too little in size to make a difference. Because it was a world conflict, no one currency enjoyed an advantage other than the dollar, which had, of course, the advantage of having other people's property serve as the primary battlefield with our resources of blood and guns. We don't need a war with bullets. We need a war against a crumbling infrastructure. The "conservatives" who want us to pull back and take our medicine would have us spend more on lost productivity and capital than would be invested in desperately needed infrastructure. And, of course, at the end of the day we will have the infrastructure. Lest we not forget, it will be private industry building that infrastructure.

Nation's Debt: It's Not Being Rescued, It's Being Moved Around

It is mind numbing that otherwise smart people fail to understand that free markets, without referees, cease to be free as the game turns into a free for all. The right wing, with Clinton's help, believed that Hoover was right and Roosevelt was wrong. They took away, brick by brick, the carefully constructed levees built by the post Depression leaders, to avoid a collapse from ever happening again. Glass Steigel existed for a reason. the Securities and Exchange Acts of 33 and 34 existed for a reason. Without transparency and regulation, the Wall Street houses and hedge funds, opted for the lines of business that generated huge profits -- that should have been a give away -- with crazy derivatives and unregulated insurance contracts, all intertwined in much the same way that existed prior to the Great Depression. As the rich under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush got richer and richer, their incomes went into leveraged investments in paper, without exanding the means of production. Toyota spent $5 billion on R and D. GM spent $5 billion on unfunded pension obligations. The middle class was presented with a path to greatness fed by staggering loads of debt. The rich wined and dined on risks they failed to understand and did not want to understand. Children ruled Wall Street and then moved to Treasury.

How do we get out of it? In the short term, we should never bail out the losers who played this game. Instead, we should wage war on our crumbling infrastructure, spending hundreds of billions on projects that will create jobs and leave us with capital improvements instead of stupid, mindless, ego driven wars. Rather than "tighten our belts" as McCain idioticaly proclaims -- the intellectual equal to bleeding a sick patiet -- we should address the scariest part of today's news, the dramatic cut back in state and local infrastructure projects. We should reestablish all of the post Depression walls, reinstateme the prohibitions on banks owning insurance companies and investment houses, and other businesses and require anyone taking deposits and making loans to be a bank insured by the FDIC.

The right wing hates Roosevelt which is ironic. Roosevelt saved capitalism by putting referees on the field of play. We need them back.

Nation's Debt: It's Not Being Rescued, It's Being Moved Around

We elected a moron who bankrupted every business he was ever associated with other than the Texas Rangers, where he traded Sammy Sousa for a song, but made money because his interest was a "gift" from his father's friends and because -- this is a stitch -- got the benefit of a new tax passed by the people of Dallas to buy him a stadium. He likes new taxes that line his wallet. We got what we deserve but lets hope 8 years is enough.