When the economists say that we are facing our greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, I think they're being unjustifiably optimistic. We're more likely facing the worst crisis ever!

Not that the Great Depression wasn't bad.. it was terrible. But those were different times and conditions. We had a way out of the Depression, and that was to borrow. Part of the reason we got into that crisis, was the universal aversion to debt. When someone was said to "owe money all over town," it wasn't a compliment about having lots of charge accounts.

There was very little debt around in the 1930's, almost no consumer debt, and the entire cumulative national debt at that time was less than the projected deficit for just the current year. So we were free to borrow money and inject it into the economy.

Which brings us to the next point... Our national debt is currently about two thirds of our GDP. Back in those days, there wasn't much in interest being paid. There wasn't much money being spent on health care, because there wasn't much to spend it on. Antibiotics were in their infancy, most other medicines hadn't been discovered, and many surgical techniques were just not possible with the technology of the day. Nobody could run up a million dollar hospital bill. Anybody that sick, wouldn't live that long.

But we've about maxed out most all our credit now, as a nation. We can't borrow much more. And from the resources we do have, we will still have to fund the huge amounts for entitlements.

Whoever we get in the White House next year, we're in for a rough ride in the coming years after that. A lot of people are getting poorer than they were, and it's going to get a lot worse. Lots more people will be losing their homes, losing their jobs, and falling through the cracks.

The question is... when all that happens, as it surely will, what kind of President do you we're going to need? One with a history of mostly caring about, and helping, rich people? Or one who has a history of caring about, and helping poor people?

May 09, 2007.
I hear the right-wingers, the hawks, all talk about how we MUST win the war in Iraq. Their best battle maneuver against left-wing liberal talkers is to put them on the spot and accuse them of not wanting to win the war.

Newsflash:
THE ONLY ONES WHO HAVE TO WIN THE WAR IN IRAQ... ARE THE IRAQIS!

Why the hell do we need to win some other country's Civil War? We aren't even supposed to be there.

The situation we've got is a little bit like the one in World War 2... Both the Nazis and the Communists were our enemies. But the Nazis were the ones who declared war against us. Fortunately, FDR and Truman and Ike were smart enough to know we needed them to win, and disciplined enough to put put all differences aside and tolerate being on the same side as the Communists. Now, it's al-Qaeda who declared war on us. We need the Shia to win against them, but Bush is neither smart enough nor disciplined enough to do what he must. He's a spoiled brat who has never had to think anything all the way through in his life, and certainly never had to face the consequences of not bothering to do so.

We try to stop Iran from "interfering in Iraqi affairs" and deplore them because we find Iranian weaponry. So, our 150,000 troops over there are what... on vacation? Have the Iranians deployed 150,000 troops? Have we seen any Iranian armored vehicles, tanks, helicopters shooting at anything? If al-Qaeda is "on the run" in Iraq, as Bush would have us believe, it's as much due to the efforts of Iranian-backed Shia factions as it is to any offensives we've mounted.

The difference between this and our WW2 position, other than the intelligence of our screw-up-in-chief, is that the one we must fight (al-Qaeda) as a Sunni movement, has the backing of virtually all the other Muslim nations in the Middle East. The Iraqi government has the backing of only one... and Bush doesn't want them to talk to that one.