Waxing Political
Mar. 8th, 2009 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI don't do this often, but posts in my friends' journals and some other conversations have made me start to look at things a bit more.
Hunter S. Thompson put forth a rather different theory as to the nature of American political trends -- The Republican Party has the power to win the presidency at any time, but when they lose it's not because of the will of the people but because the Republicans choose not to do so. He postulates that this goes back as far as Nixon. In his theory, Carter was the Republicans pulling back to regroup after the fiasco with Nixon, and Clinton was them pulling back because of the projected financial crisis brewing. This theory would also fit for O'Bama, as the financial crisis we're facing now is probably either the worst or second worst we've faced as a nation.
Projections are that over 200,000 people will be out of work in the California Bay Area by early summer. California is so tight on cash that they're issuing IOU's to people instead of tax refund checks. The real estate devaluation nationwide (except for a few key areas) just yanked the rug out from below a lot of investors. The stock market is constantly having problems, and these aren't projected to change by any of the real financially savvy people in the near future. Businesses are failing too. The big ones that are having problems are the car manufacturers. (GM closed two divisions a few weeks ago, and they're looking at two others as potential victims. Ford has been giving the hairy eyeball to Mercury for some time now. Car loans are at an all time low, and car sales are having serious problems since there's no money to finance a new car for people, even if they have outstanding credit, unless they're very lucky.)
There are four options for investment that are considered to be the best -- Paper, (including stocks, bonds, and other similar investments) Real Estate, Businesses, and Intellectual Property. (Precious metals and gemstones and other physical investments aren't considered optimum because their value is so heavily tied to the dollar. Anyone who survived the silver run done by the Hunt Brothers in the 80's and still has silver stock knows how long it can be to show a profit, and how much those values can fluctuate) With the stock market crashing, so many people upside down on their loans for houses and business space, the widespread failure of businesses, and the tenuous state of things like copyright and distribution in this digital age, things aren't looking all that good for investors unless they're really smart and well informed.
What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that since the public is, quite incorrectly, under the impression that the president has a direct connection to the economy, it means that life isn't going to be all skittles and M&M's for our president. I have to respect the man for taking on the job -- you couldn't give me the POTUS seat for anything in the world. I knew this going in to this election, that we were barelling down a fast track to the end of the line with no brakes and no engineer at the stick. In many ways, I view him like I do a doctor of oncology -- it's a rather Don Quixote crusade he's on, and I don't have a lot of faith that he or anyone could fix it.
Do I blame Bush? Not much. Yeah, Iraq was a waste of money. He spent way too much money in his term. And he might have also helped some of his old cronies in the oil industry in giving us a good rodgering. But I tend to think of him as a Frat Boy who got in over his head and mucked things up, just like he has at every other job he's done in the past.
So, who do I blame? Well, FDR for starters. He initiated the whole idea of pushing debts to the next generation with his administration, and that legacy is finally starting to bite us. With the massive Boomer generation we had the resourceses to feed that monster, but as Boomers start to retire we're starting to see those resources losing their strength, and the following generations can't shoulder the burden.
However, the people I blame the most are the citizens of the United States. We've buried our heads in the sand, pounded our chests in triumph as the alleged only superpower left on earth, and let our greed and arrogance control our reason and lead us down a path where we're now about to hit the rocks, hard. We've bailed out gamblers when their bets don't pay off, (and yes, investment is gambling, and so is loaning money to anyone like banks and finance companies do) which tells them that it's okay to gamble because Uncle Sam is going to make it all better.
It's easy to complain and whine about the government. Too easy. But we enable them. Look up the word Pander. It's a two-sided coin, the panderer and the recipient, and our continual focus on what each little special interest group wants instead of what is good for the whole country has contributed heavily to the mess we're in.
Will we survive it? As individuals, probably for most of us. Some won't, either by their own actions or falling through the cracks. Will the United States survive as a cohesive political entity? That remains to be seen. I'm not that far-sighted about all of this, and I specifically avoid asking those questions when doing any divination work. I don't really want the burden of knowing that right now, I've got other fish to fry and I'm getting short on cornmeal and oil at the moment.
But back on topic -- Do I think O'Bama will be a good president? Don't know. I'm going to do what I can to support him as president, because he's the one we've got and without support he's just a guy in a big white house with a lot of very old dishes in it. If we don't support him, that'll pretty much guarantee that he falls flat on his face. And I really don't want a bunch of racists and bigots to have that as a whipping stick to use against others, either.
One more thing -- if you voted for O'Bama because of his skin color, you're an idiot. Anyone who votes for someone on a single issue is playing Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol. After all, Mike Tyson has the same skin color -- you want him for president? Doing something because of past problems due to issues like that is counterproductive. REmember, getting even gave us WWII thanks to the Treaty of Versailles. Until everyone can start thinking in terms of what is the best deal for the most people, drop all the old resentments and get the therapy they need to let go of such things, and start thinking of people as US instead of Us and Them, we're going to keep repeating the same mistakes and propogate the wave . Anyone who knows anything about acoustics knows that the best way to stop a sound is to silence it, not put more energy into it. The president represents everyone in america, not just "his people." That's the big difference between us and the parlaimentary systems at work in other countries -- we expect our leader to represent everyone.
Hunter S. Thompson put forth a rather different theory as to the nature of American political trends -- The Republican Party has the power to win the presidency at any time, but when they lose it's not because of the will of the people but because the Republicans choose not to do so. He postulates that this goes back as far as Nixon. In his theory, Carter was the Republicans pulling back to regroup after the fiasco with Nixon, and Clinton was them pulling back because of the projected financial crisis brewing. This theory would also fit for O'Bama, as the financial crisis we're facing now is probably either the worst or second worst we've faced as a nation.
Projections are that over 200,000 people will be out of work in the California Bay Area by early summer. California is so tight on cash that they're issuing IOU's to people instead of tax refund checks. The real estate devaluation nationwide (except for a few key areas) just yanked the rug out from below a lot of investors. The stock market is constantly having problems, and these aren't projected to change by any of the real financially savvy people in the near future. Businesses are failing too. The big ones that are having problems are the car manufacturers. (GM closed two divisions a few weeks ago, and they're looking at two others as potential victims. Ford has been giving the hairy eyeball to Mercury for some time now. Car loans are at an all time low, and car sales are having serious problems since there's no money to finance a new car for people, even if they have outstanding credit, unless they're very lucky.)
There are four options for investment that are considered to be the best -- Paper, (including stocks, bonds, and other similar investments) Real Estate, Businesses, and Intellectual Property. (Precious metals and gemstones and other physical investments aren't considered optimum because their value is so heavily tied to the dollar. Anyone who survived the silver run done by the Hunt Brothers in the 80's and still has silver stock knows how long it can be to show a profit, and how much those values can fluctuate) With the stock market crashing, so many people upside down on their loans for houses and business space, the widespread failure of businesses, and the tenuous state of things like copyright and distribution in this digital age, things aren't looking all that good for investors unless they're really smart and well informed.
What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that since the public is, quite incorrectly, under the impression that the president has a direct connection to the economy, it means that life isn't going to be all skittles and M&M's for our president. I have to respect the man for taking on the job -- you couldn't give me the POTUS seat for anything in the world. I knew this going in to this election, that we were barelling down a fast track to the end of the line with no brakes and no engineer at the stick. In many ways, I view him like I do a doctor of oncology -- it's a rather Don Quixote crusade he's on, and I don't have a lot of faith that he or anyone could fix it.
Do I blame Bush? Not much. Yeah, Iraq was a waste of money. He spent way too much money in his term. And he might have also helped some of his old cronies in the oil industry in giving us a good rodgering. But I tend to think of him as a Frat Boy who got in over his head and mucked things up, just like he has at every other job he's done in the past.
So, who do I blame? Well, FDR for starters. He initiated the whole idea of pushing debts to the next generation with his administration, and that legacy is finally starting to bite us. With the massive Boomer generation we had the resourceses to feed that monster, but as Boomers start to retire we're starting to see those resources losing their strength, and the following generations can't shoulder the burden.
However, the people I blame the most are the citizens of the United States. We've buried our heads in the sand, pounded our chests in triumph as the alleged only superpower left on earth, and let our greed and arrogance control our reason and lead us down a path where we're now about to hit the rocks, hard. We've bailed out gamblers when their bets don't pay off, (and yes, investment is gambling, and so is loaning money to anyone like banks and finance companies do) which tells them that it's okay to gamble because Uncle Sam is going to make it all better.
It's easy to complain and whine about the government. Too easy. But we enable them. Look up the word Pander. It's a two-sided coin, the panderer and the recipient, and our continual focus on what each little special interest group wants instead of what is good for the whole country has contributed heavily to the mess we're in.
Will we survive it? As individuals, probably for most of us. Some won't, either by their own actions or falling through the cracks. Will the United States survive as a cohesive political entity? That remains to be seen. I'm not that far-sighted about all of this, and I specifically avoid asking those questions when doing any divination work. I don't really want the burden of knowing that right now, I've got other fish to fry and I'm getting short on cornmeal and oil at the moment.
But back on topic -- Do I think O'Bama will be a good president? Don't know. I'm going to do what I can to support him as president, because he's the one we've got and without support he's just a guy in a big white house with a lot of very old dishes in it. If we don't support him, that'll pretty much guarantee that he falls flat on his face. And I really don't want a bunch of racists and bigots to have that as a whipping stick to use against others, either.
One more thing -- if you voted for O'Bama because of his skin color, you're an idiot. Anyone who votes for someone on a single issue is playing Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol. After all, Mike Tyson has the same skin color -- you want him for president? Doing something because of past problems due to issues like that is counterproductive. REmember, getting even gave us WWII thanks to the Treaty of Versailles. Until everyone can start thinking in terms of what is the best deal for the most people, drop all the old resentments and get the therapy they need to let go of such things, and start thinking of people as US instead of Us and Them, we're going to keep repeating the same mistakes and propogate the wave . Anyone who knows anything about acoustics knows that the best way to stop a sound is to silence it, not put more energy into it. The president represents everyone in america, not just "his people." That's the big difference between us and the parlaimentary systems at work in other countries -- we expect our leader to represent everyone.
