FInancial Crisis Cause & Effect

When will everyone stop limiting this financial mess to the last 3-8 years? It has taken 27 years to get this deep in the muck. We’re still following the path set by Ronald Reagan. You remember - the actor turned politician who was our oldest President and probably in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He put his trickle down economic theory into practice. Guess what – once the richest got their hands on the money they kept it! We are now in a financial crisis. He said our public schools (number 1 in the world at that time) were failing and began dismantling them. We are now in an educational crisis. Our schools are ranked 24th and dropout rates continue to spiral out of control. He thought no one should be institutionalized and closed the institutions. Now, many are forced to roam our streets as the homeless, and others fill public housing projects, further destabilizing those areas. Thank god his Star Wars program was seen as too extreme to implement!

He was an actor!! He could say anything with total conviction. And we bought it. Now, we’re paying the price. Granted other Presidents have added to this situation, but Ronald Reagan was the architect.

BAILOUT - Failure of Government

When President Bush first submitted the bailout bill two weeks ago, I agreed that it was urgently necessary. I also understood that the Senate and Congress would need to refine the terms. It needed to have more control to protect taxpayers. Our elected representatives have added weak oversight to limit Secretary Paulson’s complete discretion and control of all $700 billion. It minimally addresses CEO pay restrictions, but not foreign owned institutions, leaving them in the bailout pool. Nothing in the bill addresses citizens facing foreclosures. All of these things seem at least related to the current financial crisis, but promise little in the way of protecting the tax dollars we will be investing in the economy. It ultimately does appear to be the powerful giving our money to the rich, again. Adding insult to injury, unrelated issues have found their way into the bill, such as energy and tax bills, as well as pork barrel, which take up over three-quarters of the verbiage.

If we had any faith in the way our government worked before this bill, citizens must now acknowledge that our elected representatives aren’t capable of addressing our country’s business needs quickly, sufficiently, or without taking care of their own wants first. At this point, I don’t trust the legislative or executive branches of our government to handle any of our nation’s concerns. They have proven their complete ineptitude while formulating this bill.