Call it something Different, It is still war

Obama has apparently come to the realization that terrorist must be stopped. Right now the focus has shifted from Iraq toward Pakistan (Pokistan as he says). He calls it something like a shift in resources, Bush just said it plainly...invasion. I do not think we will make a ground assault on Pakistan unless they ask for help. I cannot help but wonder about two countries that have been fighting for decades over a small piece of land called Kashmir. Maybe I spelled that right.

The very issues that won Obama the office now face him and like Mister Bush, he must confront those issues. He is good at calling an apple an orange but they are still fruit nevertheless.

He can lay blame whereeer he pleases and most people will accept it as fact but a review of the last 15 years will show where the blame lies.

I still believe that the inaction of Congress during the last year of Mister Bush's term caused the meltdown of the financial market. They stopped all he tried to do to make him look bad. Check it out.

So, even if one plays the name game and the blame game, the issues are the same and the reactions are the same in some form or another. Mister Obama has a hard job. Reality is his main course now.

America doesn't read anymore (much) but I think the history books (honest ones) will show Mister Bush in a different light than what is said now by many. I also think the blame will be (or should be) laid at the right door if there remains any integrity at all.

The Mess We're In

Sometimes you have to stretch the memory to get to the root of things. Way back before Bill Clinton left office, he lifted the regulations on Wall Street. It was in his last days so the change took place in the Bush administration. That was about the deal of insuring those risky Wall Street bets on the risky loans for people who could not afford the houses they bought. They bundled the loans and sold them to investors who posted them on Wall Street and got more people to invest. If you understand that, you are probably hiding your money in a mattress, if you have any money.

Next, the Democrats took over Congress about the time Bush was reelected. With Pelosi in charge, they blocked every piece of legislation the president sent to them that would help the country. Government was almost at a standstill for several years. Why would a Democratically controlled congress block even good legislation? The answer is to make the Republican president look bad and pave the way for a Democratic candidate to get elected president. Maybe some think no political party would put the country at risk to gain power in Washington DC. Maybe pigs fly too.

The housing problem is little different than the Savings and Loan disaster of a few decades ago. The associations stretched the bands of the market and it snapped leaving many in financial distress. That also cost a bundle. It was not caused by a failure of the system but was a result of greed.

Here is the danger we face. The government is putting up the money (which they don't have) to prop up companies that played the stock market (with money they did not have) and lost. Who did have the money? The citizens of our country had the money and trusted it to Wall Street. That's like giving a monkey a banana and telling it to not eat it. The danger is that instead of a free enterprise system, we are slipping into a socialist system where everyone depends on the government for everything. In the free enterprise system, you take your chances and if you loose, you start over. In the socialist system, you take your changes, and if you loose the government gives you back the money you lost and takes part in the company. We all know how good the government is at making a budget balance.

The problem is if you give a teenager all the money they need, they will never go to work and become responsible citizens. If the government gives the companies all the money they need, they will never take responsibility for their actions. Since when do we reward crooks who run crooked companies, well, since just a few months ago. Probably a lot of the people giving away taxpayer money also lost money in this mess and are trying to recoup it by building the companies back up.

Our country prospers only when the government minds their own business.

Whose to say that we can't do without the stock market anyway? Everything doesn't have to be national or international. If banks did their job, businesses would have the expansion capitol they need. The stock market is a trumped up casino where people bet their few thousand that they can make a million off it.