Citizen! Aren't you glad that in this time of economic turmoil...

Citizen! Aren't you glad that in this time of economic turmoil we can rest easy knowing the steady hand of the nation's first President with an MBA is guiding the ship of state? Certainly such an ardent capitalist would never engage in the largest nationalization in the history of humanity? Like John McCain*, economics is not my strongest suit and I don't pretend to know a ton about the dismal science, but I have seemingly more common sense than many who have been running our government and business community for years now.

Overspending on risky investments with little government oversight tends to create problems down the road. Cutting taxes, especially so deeply and demonstrably skewed towards the already wealthy is irresponsible and dangerous. When you hold a debt of $9,600,000,000,000 (or roughly 75% of GDP) adding a bailout of an extra $700 Billion without any sort of accountability or oversight onto that sum seems to be a bad, long-term fiscal decision. The government cannot let these bulwarks of our and the world's economy falter, but it is a symptom of the misplaced priorities of our economics that such corporate giants and their golden-parachuted executives can get bailouts for making terrible decisions with other people's money and we, the people who may make bad choices are fully on the tab for our own poor choices. Welfare for the wealthy, well-connected, foreclosure and job decreases for everyone else. Personal Responsibility stops at your own skin I guess.

The major flaw of the trickle down, voodoo economics that has been THE Republican idea for 30 years now, is that it's a model that fails to take into account people. The wealthy, they say, are best informed and able to invest in grand schemes and buy stock in companies that they think will do well and their profit should then be re-invested and grow the economy. Even their luxury spending will eventually get down to regular folks by buying expensive goods and services, passing that money down the ladder. Thus, everyone (eventually) benefits. But this ignores the demonstrable spending and investment habits of many of the wealthy. Profligate spending is everywhere and the media loves to promote stories about the newest over-the-top stories of excess. Gold flakes in food is one of my favorites, I mean nothing will ease that hangover like having your shit sparkle back at you. Foreign vacations and spending on luxury imports do nothing to re-invest in our economy (granted this is simplistic in a global economy but the tremendous trade deficit we've been rocking isn't helpful).

The second half of this is investment. In the tightly-knit economic stratosphere people act the same way they do the world over. They give to their friends, even if the investment isn't necessarily the wisest. George Bush's first company, Arbusto Energy, is a prime example of this. Completely incompetent at the oil business, 41's friends had to come through and bail him out after having funded the enterprise in the first place. Taking such risks can have tremendous rewards (as anyone who invested in computers 25-30 years ago can attest) but they can also fail spectacularly, costing everyone. Such scatter-shot investment is not the result of well-researched and well-reasoned decisions, it's about who you know. That does not work in government or business, but it's how the world works. The model is broken.

http://publicmasturbation.blogspot.com/2008/09/citizen-arent-you-glad-that-in-this_20.html

it is a woman and she is really hot) I have recommended this thread.