Tag: america

When Good Is Not Enough

by rhealitycheck

Why is it so difficult for politicians to admit that they make mistakes? And why is it that we think that reaching across the aisle is more important currently than making effective changes to the major bills going through Congress to actually effectively change the way things are headed. I mean surely making nice with the Republicans, who I would like to note, have quite successfully been ousted out of the House, Senate and White House or we could pass some legislation that actually puts some good back into this country. Tax cuts are not effective and they are not the path to helping out people who are truly struggling. Let me tell you those tax cuts are not helping the guy that just got laid-off… you know one of the most recent in the 500k+ that have lost their jobs thus far.

I love reading Paul Krugman’s op-eds (like the most recent one) because while they can be a little depressing, he is generally quite insightful. Also, I have noticed he has become more emphatic as the economic crisis has been getting worse, which I am eternally thankful for because it is nice to have someone actually care and speak intelligently about what is going on. What I can’t fathom is why we still have these Wall St schmucks advising our new President. I mean, really, it would’ve been such a tragic idea to take someone who may not be in industry but, oh, maybe a Nobel Prize recipient instead who can actually speak intelligently about economic theory and perhaps not go down the same path of greed that Wall St has been following for far too long.

For one, I think the politicians are understating the severity of this situation, which is really not helping our cause. Not to mention the fact that everyone wants to be a “centrist” because it’s oh so safe in politics. But in reality they just created a big gaping hole in some of the most significant legislature of our time. Seriously, was that necessary? It’s so hard to hope for change and for rebound when it just seems like they aren’t getting the memo.

Losing Our Morals One Dollar At A Time

by rhealitycheck

It seems to me that this economy is nothing but a product of sheer greed. What has always baffled me are the pay scales for people in different industries. I mean, in the banks people make millions of dollars in bonuses for what exactly? I would like to know why those executives make approx 100x what the lowest paid employee makes. Perhaps I believe too much in equality but I really think that’s a huge problem. When you have no clue what your actions effects are on the general populous and you no longer know how “normal” people live.

Not to mention our law-makers. It’s not just Wall St that let things go haywire, it’s our politicians too. Who quite frankly are totally out of touch with reality. I mean I’d really like to know who thinks that a salary of $169K+ is the salary of any average American (if you don’t believe me here are the links for actual figures for the House and Senate). I believe statistically speaking the average household income in America is approximately $50K, so why is it that our law-makers who are supposed to “be in touch with the pain and reality of regular Americans” make 3x as much as the average American? Not to mention, I don’t know about y’all but I am still a small fry so I only get 2 weeks of vacation but you know congress took 5 weeks just this summer when the housing market was crashing and the auto industry was in distress. Not to mention the fact that they will have government health care benefits for the rest of their lives for themselves and their families if they have served in office for 5 years. I ask you, how many corporate employers would do that? In fact, does the government even do that for any other employees? I know for a fact that isn’t true for teachers, so why are our policy makers so different? What exactly gives them all these rights and benefits when I’m not seeing a return on our hard-earned tax dollars. Sure, I’m upset with the banks. No, I don’t believe that their executives should be making the kind of money that they have been for the past I don’t even know how long, but at least that is their own private wealth that they can choose to dole out howsoever they see fit. (At least that was the case until the bailout and I believe there are no bonuses this year so at least there is *some* change in that field). Congress, on the other hand, is benefiting from *our* tax dollars. I mean the general public is expected to be able to balance our own budgets and live within our means but what about you? What right did Congress have to give themselves these raises? (They give themselves a raise every year, how generous right?) Have they truly made enough progress for us to think they are so above the rest of us? Quite frankly the way things are going, I’d say most of them deserve to lose their jobs *and* their benefits as is what would happen in the private sector if they did such a piss poor job as they’ve been doing for the last 8 years.

Granted I also believe that Wall St became too greedy and too loose with their money and with the government supporting their every move it’s hard to want to pull back. I mean why be smart when you could be getting an incredible bonus. You’ll have the money and will probably be gone by the time the whole thing goes bust, right? So who needs to be responsible. And Paul Krugman wrote a great piece on The Madoff Economy where he talks about what happened with the salaries. I think he makes some great points. I just wonder why no one ever considered him for a position in the White House considering he did just win the Nobel Prize and he has been writing insightful pieces for the NY Times for years now. Perhaps he wasn’t interested but I’m sure there would have been rumors if he had ever been considered and I find it quite distressing that he wasn’t. In fact I find a lot of the appointments to be less-than stellar. I mean it’s just a new set of characters from Wall St isn’t it? Instead of Hank Paulson we have Tim Geithner who headed up the NY Fed. Great let’s put more people who were involved in this giant mess into positions of power. Not to mention Larry Summers, why that man should be allowed anywhere after his Harvard fiasco is beyond me. And I mean let’s face it he’s the one that went along with Alan Greenspan back in the Clinton days and clearly that was not a good choice. But oh, I forgot we’re not allowed to criticize our new fabulous President-Elect because he is, of course, Prince Charming and will save us all. (And yes I am *still* licking my wounds that Hillary is only Secretary of State and not our first female President, not just because she’s a woman but because I still think she is the better candidate even if I have resigned myself to being satisfied with the lesser of two mediocre candidates.)

Reflections on the Middle East

by rhealitycheck

As an American, I am often frustrated with the politics and segmentation of our country. half the time I want to run away and half the time I stubbornly refuse to leave because if everyone who had a problem with the politics left then well, hell, we’d really all be going to hell in a hand basket, I mean just look at the last 8 years. I’d like to think it can’t get much worse than that but I don’t think running away is a good way to address the problems.

Anyway, the point of this post is to discuss the affairs of the Middle East. I was just reading the times on the way to work this morning and an op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman really made me think. I mean everything that is going on in the Middle East isn’t quite so easy to categorize as we have a tendency to do in our comfortable living rooms in our first-world nation. It’s not quite the same to sit here and pontificate about how we shouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq, we should have gone after bin laden, etc etc etc. but you know, that’s not really the problem. I think Friedman put it quite nicely when he said that drilling for oil cannot be the only reason to go to war but neither can this so called war on terrorism when we haven’t spent enough time thinking about the basics of why these “terrorists” exist. (I am not getting too detailed about his idea) I appreciated the ideas that he put out there because it actually made me sit back and think outside of party-lines. Outside of what the media has been feeding us for several years now. In fact it made me think about a lot of things that I don’t get a chance to think about quite frequently. I’d like to say this is because I don’t have time (which is partially true) but it is also because everyone is so busy being behind a party-line or some such extreme stance that no one has bothered to look at the bigger picture.

Oil is not a reason to go to war. Neither is the fact that the United States believes that Iraq should be a democracy. What about the Iraqi people, I mean yes they are stepping up and perhaps this is a bad example because they do seem ready for change but let’s look at Afghanistan, they don’t seem to be up for change right now. If the people of the country are not going to fight for equality or for change then what are we doing going to war. And beyond that why is war the solution? Aren’t there other effective political measures such as embargos etc that we could use to carry just as effective a message? Sure there is the oil factor but let’s face it. We have always known that oil is in limited supply, let’s get moving’ with the times people, we need to find more efficient ways of creating energy. The time of the oil industry is over; let’s explore solar, wind, and nuclear power sources. Let’s see what other resources we can use to revolutionize this next century instead of being dolts just following upon the path of our fathers refusing to see a revolution in the makes.