Voting

You want to know who to vote for?
Watch this video.

This short video explains it very well.
Did you like the Bush years? The huge tax cuts for the wealthy, the wars, in general the gross stupidity and lack of adults in the room, then vote for republicans.

On the other hand if you like to have people who actually think about the results of their actions and at least try to be adults, who at least attempt to represent you and your needs, vote democratic.

Look around and see in how many of your local races does the republican candidate not state his/her affiliation. Even they are ashamed of the republican party. They are still part of it, they just don't want to be branded that way. They know that anyone who thinks about the issues won't vote for them.

H/T amk at balloon-juice

We really are screwed.

 Over at Hullabaloo both digby and thereisnospoon have been getting right to the heart of the chief issue we face today. The worlds financial situation. Or maybe that should be the worlds financial implosion. Here is the takeaway graph from thereisnospoon today:

"It's high time that economists worldwide begin to envision a different way forward: a way for sovereigns to bypass reckless financial institutions and survive in the interdependent global economy without their help. A way, in other words, to truly allow banks that are too big to fail, to fail. A way to allow nations to tell investors that they will have to accept the consequences of their having taken the risk that comes with making money off interest with no labor involved. If not, the moral hazard of an increasingly powerful and unaccountable global investor elite will continue destroy sovereign nations socially, economically and spiritually. It's only going to get worse from here."

 As long as the people are slaves to the big banks we will continue to be at risk for an epic depression, that looks to be much worse than the 1930's. At the time many more people worked in agrarian jobs and could, if not be totally self-sufficient, survive. And there were bread lines and a good percentage of people were continuously hungry. Now most food in the industrial countries comes from large corporations, owned by investors. They will not provide food for those who have no jobs, without being paid. Most of the supermarkets are owned by large corporations and they will not give away food. So when the depression hits the hardest and there are no jobs, savings are gone and a large segment of the population is starving and homeless, it will be chaos. A dangerous chaos.

The big problem as thereisnospoon pointed out is that the investment class has changed the definition of risk. It's no longer a position of possible loss, it is a position of permanent wealth.

Digby gets it right once again.

The 2 most important graphs:

"Confidence? You'd be a fool to have confidence in the future. According to all of our most sagacious national commentators, the best case scenario is that our political leaders get past their minor differences on the scope of the cutting and come together to destroy the safety net. If they don't, well ... apparently it will be very, very bad.

Uncertainty? Average people don't have uncertainty. As far as they are concerned they're screwed no matter what happens. Our leadership demands that people buy into the silly notion that giving up their personal financial security is a patriotic duty and that high unemployment and underwater mortgages are niggling little problems that will be solved by putting more of their "skin in the game."

My questions are simple:

How long can we hold on?
How long are we expected to hold on? 
Or are we expected to just fold and go away silently?
What does our government think is going to happen?


Someone stated the other day that it took 12 years to get over the depression. So, we learned those lessons, how to fix the economy, so why do we have to spend another 12 years doing it again? Are we really that stupid?
And the answer seems to be yes, we are just that stupid.
All that highfaluting Ivy league education our betters have, shot to hell. What a fucking waste.

The Writing is Better, The Level of Disgust Probably the Same

Digby, Digby, Digby

The arrogance, the privilege, the balls the size of Texas, it's a wonder they can get their whiny asses through the door.

There is nothing left to say about the financial mess, unless it's how to fix it.