Quote of the Day
“What irony we are seeing these days; the rescue plans for international banking could well have solved the scourge of hunger in the world.”
– Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
“What irony we are seeing these days; the rescue plans for international banking could well have solved the scourge of hunger in the world.”
– Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
October 7th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Typical liberal — calling for another gub’mint handout for the poor (read: lazy) while ignoring the real tragedy: that some of America’s premiere trust-fund babies are facing a holiday season during which they might have to endure the indignity of hitching a ride on *someone else’s* private jet to get to their vacation homes.
And you people call yerselfs compassionate?
October 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Exactly Hugh. We should be more empathetic and respectful of the wealthy. Let’s try to remember who does the trickling in this country, shall we?
October 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
All sarcasm aside (for the moment, that is — just for the moment
, events like the recent bailout go a long way toward explaining why so many Americans feel completely disconnected from the government.
With matters such as health care, childcare, job training, etc. we’re constantly told two things: 1) there’s no money, & 2) even if there *was* money (which we repeat, there *ain’t*) gov’t assistance = handouts = dependence = end of civilization as we know it.
But here’s the dirty secret: At the government level, there’s *always* money when the cause is deemed worthy. Does anyone really think that (no matter how many times Mavericky McMaverick tells us Barack voted “no”) the military is ever not going to be funded? Anyone think that any senators are worried that *their* health care plan might run out of money? Yeah — didn’t think so.
From my barely-literate-when-it-comes-to-the-economy perspective, it sounds like the financial world’s in a heckuva mess, and that the $700 billion the government is spending is money that needs to be spent. (Whether it’s being spent *wisely* is, of course, another matter altogether.) But once again, the fundamental problem isn’t “do we have the money?” but “do we feel this is *worthy* of spending money on?”
Even if we weren’t spending billions every month on Iraq, & even if we weren’t sending $700 billion (plus whatever comes next) to Wall Street, we wouldn’t have universal health care, & every kid wouldn’t get a healthy breakfast at school, & we’d still be lacking in job training opportunities.
And the excuse would be “we don’t have the money.”
October 7th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Right you are sir.
And what I have been telling neocons for years is that we only ‘let the market decide’ when we’re talking about public education or health care or the environment or any type of social spending. When it comes to bailing out the financial industry, or the airline industry, or the auto industry, or anything else ‘important’, so called conservatives would just as soon the market shut the fuck up.