It's The Stupid Economy!

The Stock Market dropped over 500 points.
McCain's response?
The economy is "fundamentally sound"!
The same infamous phrase Herbert Hoover used
reacting to to the historic crash of 1929.

The economy is stupid!
One need not be a Wall Street wizard
or hold a PHD in economics
to understand that some things have intrinsic value
and some things don't.
Aside from the obvious shenanigans in the mortgage industry,
the idea that the fox must be trusted to guard the chicken coop
is plain wrong.

American's reduced to standing in soup lines to survive in the 1930s

History has a nasty habit of repeating itself when people ignore it's lessons.
What caused the great depression?
In the 1920's a stock market boom-bubble in the U.S. was powered by generic optimism. The The businessmen and economists were convinced that the invention of the Federal Reserve would stabilize and guide the economy, that expanding markets were guaranteed. People, by and large
felt their standard of living was safe or would improve.
In 1928 and 1929 speculators were creating artificial bubbles
in the Stock Market, driving prices up.
(sound familiar?)
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates in an effort to curb speculation.
This caused the initial recession.

Workers stood idle because firms would not hire them.
Firms would not hire workers because there was no market for their goods.
There was no market for goods because workers had no incomes to spend.
Workers had no income because they had no jobs....
on and on....

At some point,
in the US, an uncomfortable unspoken agreement was struck.
Business recognized that unless there was a healthy middle class,
no one would be buying their goods.
This bargain has been breached in recent years.
The US workers were tossed aside
in favor of inexpensive labor elsewhere.
Public and environmental safeguards
have been avoided by manufacturing in nations that have no such laws.
When the lack of laws protecting consumers becomes evident-
as in tainted pet food, poison infant formula, lead paint on children's toys,
firms wring their hands of responsibility and blame
the workers in those countries whom they are exploiting.
What Americans need to understand is that
despite the short lived profits from cheap labor and shoddy goods,
the future is being sold at a cut rate price.
The idea is to take 95% of Americans
who we call the middle class,
and reduce their standard of living to match the 3rd world.
Only a very few benefit from that,
and only very temporarily.


The American middle class shares the same fate as the polar bear.

McCain admitted he knows nothing about economic matters.
The fellow he appointed to write his economic policy
was Phil Graham - one of those most directly responsible
for the current meltdown on Wall Street.
(the same miscreant elitist
who said America's middle class were a bunch of whiners)
BTW, if McCain by his own admission knows nothing about economics,
why was he on the commerce committee?
Even if he knew nothing before that, didn't he pay any attention while he
"served" on that committee?

Believing the very politicians who fought for the conditions that caused the economy to fail
are going to fix it is simply insane.

"The future will be better tomorrow." -George W. Bush
I think, for once, I agree with him.