Comments on: Corporatist/socialist state continues to grow, federal government planning broad new bailout

By: beetlbumjl

beetlbumjl — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:17:01 +0000

I feel as if the pendulum is swinging fast to nationalization and increased gov’t intervention while the population at large continues to focus on partisan politics. People may look at their quarterly 401k statements and gasp, but in the end, it’s Obama’s choice of lapel pins that provokes them to call into talk shows. Grumble, grumble about the Wall Street bankers and the Fed, but any kind of reform is labeled fringe at best.

Ron Paul has every right to say, “I told you so,” but he is more tactful than that. It would be nice if the Barney Frank’s and Harry Reid’s of the world, who have publicly stated that they “Do not know what to do… let’s adjourn,” get out of the way and let people who understand the issue work to solve it.

Instead I have grown to understand politics like religion. There is little sense in trying to debate something when most employ faith based arguments. The emotional appeal of red/team blue team trumps logic. The market will implode and everyone will be affected. I guess we can only hope that then a few pull their heads out of their asses and wake up.

By: bile

bile — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:28:38 +0000

I’ve sortof come to terms with the market imploding. Now I’m worrying about the aftermath. We can safely bet that nationalisation will stay and perhaps continue. My hope is that Paul and others who are truly providing solutions are heard to some extent. I’m not asking for a sea-change but even if only 1-2% of the population becomes better educated as to what happened here perhaps down the road things could be changed for the better. The fact that I’ve had 3 people ask me to borrow The Case Against the Fed in the past week is somewhat promising. Even if you don’t completely agree with Rothbard I think it’s hard to deny many of the points and in the least opens up the dialog. The power of a central bank is grossly underestimated or considered and the topic really should be on the table again.

By: beetlbumjl

beetlbumjl — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:57:01 +0000

Why is it that when you talk with someone one-on-one, you’ll hear

1 - That none of the mainstream candidates are addressing any of the problem
2 - Third party / non-mainstream candidate speaks the truth about topic X.

Beyond that limited conversation, everyone seems to resort back into red team / blue team politics. I had the conservative radio on the other day (96.9 wtkk) on my way home, listening to a supposed Libertarian, Jay Severin, go on and on about some ticky-tack issue he had with Obama. (I think it may had been something about not knowing what “AIG” stood for.)

Mainstream media can be boiled down into: Whine whine whine about people picking on my candidate. Booo booo the other guy. He or she is an out of touch commie. And that other third party guy, yeah he was right, but he’s a moon bat, so whatever, we can’t stop paying attention to him when this all blows over.

For fuck’s sake, we are completely beyond name calling politics here. The financial industry is blowing up around us and Congress is out to fucking lunch while the Fed and Treasury carry on activities that would make Soviet Russia blush. And radio and TV shows are still airing playground politics? Frustrating is an understatement.