Suppose a politician proposed the following:
Provide economics education to children in the K-12 grades, using age-appropriate and fiscally accurate information, including information on how to stop the transmission of Ponzi schemes, prevent fraud and detect con artists.
Moving on with other election-season peeves, next on the list is the tendency to genuflect at a candidate’s feet — and Obama isn’t the only one to receive this treatment. Hillary Clinton got it, and Sarah Palin did before her interviews with the press showed even the faithful that is she is woefully unprepared and unqualified to run her own state let alone the country. McCain? Maybe not so much – it took Palin to fire up the base – although he does have his own herd of worshipful lemmings cheered on by Sen. Joe Lieberman. The point is that people – voters, reporters, Big Talking Heads – treat politicians, our fearless “leaders,” like messiahs instead of, well, politicians.
The genesis of my nickname for this year’s election began with the media’s “Decision ’08,” parodied on the Daily Show as “Indecision ‘08,” and filtered through the sick feeling I have in my stomach to become “Indigestion ’08.” Yes, it’s a super-critical election, with a lot at stake. But when even Karl Rove thinks (http://www.crooksandliars.com/) that “McCain has gone in some of his ads similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know…beyond, beyond, beyond the, the 100% truth test,” it’s no surprise that nausea at this absurdly brutal election campaign has been the norm.
While the GOP pats itself on the back for trotting out a young unknown to neutralize the Democrats’ own young-but-no-longer-unknown, the young unknown from Alaska firmly established her credentials to be McCain’s running mate: ignorance about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the willingness to let the State pay her a per diem allowance for working at home (while she and her husband have six-figure salaries) It’s an appropriate match between a woman whose appeal to social regressives masks questionable fiscal knowledge and the man who openly admitted to being ignorant of economics. And it’s not surprising, either: ignorance and Republican economics go together like flies and…rotten fruit. At the heart of it all, of course, is the GOP’s greatest phobia: the fear of – brace yourself – “wealth redistribution.” Siding with the Sheriff of Nottingham against the “villainous” Robin Hood, Republicans fear, above all, that Democrats will just take money from the rich and give it to everyone else.
Dear Friends:
Gay marriage is legal in California, thanks to a recent California Supreme Court ruling.
But it might not be for long.
The Forces of Intolerance have gathered to place a measure on the November ballot – Prop. 8. Their goal: To deny gays and lesbians the right to marry the person they love. Their method: amend California’s constitution to define marriage as being solely the union between a man and a woman.
Morality often consists of telling other people not to do something you don’t like. Don’t approve of what a person is wearing? Ban it. Offended by nekkid people? Make clothes mandatory…but only the clothes you approve of. Someone not having sex in the missionary position? Call them pervy and shame them. Wait…someone’s having sex? By George (yes, that one), it’s time to call on the government to intervene.
“Don’t Let Sacramento Politicians Remove Products From Your Grocery Bag,” says a flyer I received in the mail. Apparently, Sacramento wants to ban something called BPA, a material used in plastic food packaging and other plastic products. And that would be bad. But here’s a suspicious statement: “Banning Materials That Keep Our Food Fresh And Safe Is A Terrible Idea.” What a strange thing to write. Why would Sacramento want to ban something that keeps our food fresh and safe? Maybe it’s a “liberal” thing – because, don’t you know, a ban a day keeps liberal displeasure at bay. No reason necessary, right? Forget about it; there has to be some justification for proposing a ban, and there is: BPA allegedly poses a health hazard.
While the kids are fighting over who is king of the sandbox, the economy burns. And the games number-shufflers play to find new ways of pulling money out the air (and other places) are only part of the problem; the rest might very well lie with the field of economics itself.
Some people say it’s the economy, stupid. I think it’s the stupid economy and that there’s nothing surprising about not understanding what’s going on. How can we, when we even the eminence grises in the ivory tower have to resort to seemingly magical actions like adjusting interest rates in the hope of influencing the economy’s health? Adjusting interest rates? It seems like there’s this whole other parallel world of economics. A world in which interest rates set by the Federal Reserve affect how money is loaned and borrowed. A world in which arcane economic/legal constructs founded on other such constructs allow for “creative” ways to make money.
Don’t do it. Seriously. Don’t do it. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Don’t even think about doing it. It’s all in your head, don’t you know. So don’t. Okay? Just don’t. Don’t whine. Don’t complain. It’s a mental recession, see? Get it? You’re mind is receding. So stop whining and go spend the money you don’t have on things that are too expensive – like food or gas. And if you can’t, well, stop whining anyway. You’re liable to upset McCain’s top economic policy advisor, Phil Gramm. He thinks the U.S. is already too much of a whining nation. http://www.washtimes.com/news
