March 27, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MAYBE WE NEED A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM
For the most part, I admire the United States Constitution. The system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers built into the Constitution were supposed to be a safeguard against an oppressive and autocratic government. The Founders couldn't foresee the Bush-Cheney administration. This administration does what it wants to do. It's damn the Constitution and full speed ahead. Bush and Cheney love favorable polls, but polls that don't support their war in Iraq get ignored. This column by Helen Thomas is at www.commondreams.org:
Back in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s worst days when he was grappling with the Vietnam quagmire and raucous anti-war protests at home, he said that in the big decisions about war and peace: "The people should be in on the take offs as well as the landings."
Tell that to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who apparently couldn’t care less what Americans think - except every four years at election time.
Cheney made that clear in an intriguing interview with ABC News on his recent Middle East trip. Despite the difficulties surrounding the unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq five years ago, Cheney insisted, "It was the right thing to do."
When the interviewer told him that two-thirds of Americans say the war in Iraq is not worth fighting, Cheney scoffed. The administration would not be "blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls," he vowed.
Cheney went on to claim that Abraham Lincoln would never have succeeded in the Civil War if he had paid attention to polls. White House press secretary Dana Perino later indicated that Bush was on the same page.
THE DOMINO EFFECT OF DISASTER
When you look at the subprime mortgage crisis you can see an almost domino-like effect. The dominos started falling with stagnating wages back in the 1970's. Women increasingly went to work because one income wasn't enough anymore. Then along came Bush and Greenspan. Since two incomes weren't even enough to survive, people began to tap into their home equity to make up the difference. Low interest rates and deceptive lending practices eventually led us to where we are now. This article by Don Monkerud is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The current financial crisis grew out of politicized government policy and a shared belief among business elites to support a laissez-fair, free market, anti-tax economy unhindered by regulations. And ordinary citizens are paying the price of a system rigged to the advantage of those who manipulate capital.
"The foreclosure crisis is a man-made phenomena," said David M. Abromowitz, senior fellow for the Center for American Progress. "It's not just the side effect of a normal market cycle. There was a push to boost home ownership and a pattern of under regulating financial services and support from all kinds of businesses to allow the free market to take over."
The crisis originated in Allen Greenspan's decision to lower Federal interest rates to protect the economy from recession after the Internet stock bubble and 9/11 imperiled the economy. While the Fed kept interest rates low, investors sought higher returns and real estate appeared undervalued.
Although housing costs had risen at a yearly rate of 1.8% over inflation since the Carter presidency, they shot up an average of 7% a year from 2000 to 2004. Easy money under Bush's policy of an "ownership society" increased ownership rates 1.4% and pushed the cost of the median home from $130,000 in 2000 to a peak of $221,900 in 2006.
