Let's Review

Let me see if I have a little understanding of what’s going on and where we’re at (as they say).

Fiscal policy for the better part of the last decade has driven the value of the dollar into the cellar, dropping it from .92 to .74 since November of 2005. Oil is traded in dollars so every smidgen of value the dollar looses makes it more expensive for us to buy oil and less expensive for people who count their money in Euros or Yen or Yuan, currencies which have held their value against the US dollar. The increases in oil prices, in turn, make it more expensive to transport goods from one place to another, to make fertilizer used to grow food, and to commute to work. And when we arrive at our jobs, we find that conservative tax policy has seen the CEO’s income increase by 47% while the people who do the actual work have seen their buying power shrink by something on the order of 5%.

Unrealistic tax cuts, which sound great at first blush, have forced us to borrow heavily from foreign powers to finance the most expensive war in the history of the planet. Servicing that ever increasing debt – three trillion by the time we’re done with it by some estimates – makes it impossible to maintain our infrastructure of roads and bridges, to promote the education we need to maintain a competitive edge in the future or even adequately fund our security systems. After all, the money has to come from somewhere and, if we're not financing our obligations with tax revenues, there aren't a heck of a lot of other options besides borrowing.

These policies further reward corporations for moving our manufacturing jobs overseas, undermining our manufacturing sector – the single most effective means for creating wealth, the most important anecdote to most of the problems that beset us.

The conservative approach to deregulation created an atmosphere where predatory lenders, selling the story that housing prices would continue to rise forever, could make usurious loans to the unsuspecting. The lenders told borrowers that when the balloon payments kicked in the borrower could always refinance or, better yet, sell the house and “buy up” on the illusionary increase in equity. And who needs verification of your income, anyway? The chickens have come home to roost and those policies will leave one third of the homes in the US in negative equity by the time we can install a new (and hopefully more rational) administration.

The net effect is that these policies have driven the country into a recession teetering on the verge of a depression (in spite of the administration’s happy talk and “blowing smoke up the ass” of anyone who’ll listen).

In the meantime a significant percentage of the population seems to think it’s a good idea to maintain these policies because part of the conservative package will protect us from the ravages of gay marriage? Are you friggin’ kidding me?!?! Did I use the phrase before – the image of lemmings drinking kool-aid?

Let me know if you think I got it wrong. I sure hope I did ... but I don't think so.