Disturbing trends predicted that Bush would need more bail out funds and it looks like we sort of got it right. Though he has left the White House, he is still technically President – and the Bank of America and Citibank are moping up the bail out cash like blotting paper. It is not the end yet. But it may be the end of the beginning of this crisis, although I have seen that prediction before.
Sorry, we were right. Them pesky derivatives.
A question in The Guardian (UK) was – will we miss GW Bush? My answer…
“Bush did his best against odds that his imagination had no room to consider. His stern resolve resulted in near total collapse of the world economy, the peace forged from WW1 has been damaged and America is seen in a completely different light. Miss him? In a “grizzly beat took my eye out but I still feel for the old beast” sort of way.
See: The Guardian
The memories of the last eight years are not complete without an understanding that a person was controlling things in the White House that did not understand economics but treated the entire game as a machine he could manipulate. I agree with the sentiment of another opinion piece – why have a rich person in control – they generally got there due to the actions of others. Why not a genius? Perhaps GW Bush has simply enabled democracy to take the next fabled leap – without GW Bush millions of Americans would still be moderately well off. His economic policies seemed aimed at subjecting everyone to substantial economic risk.
That article, from April 2008 shows the start of the end for 1.5 million American taxpayers who queue for backruptcy protection then. Made it easier for families to bankrupt themselves. Interesting form of herd management.
From the blogs:
“Bush has not bequeathed us a shining city on a hill in Afghanistan, but a crippled state in need of billions of dollars of investments that we no longer have because of Bush’s kleptomaniac buddies, whom he enabled.”
Letters from school children to Mr Obama published in the NY Times included this:
Dear President Obama,
I am small, quiet, smart. I love to swim and play basketball. My mom and dad are from the Dominican Republic. I am going to the Dominican Republic next year. I think you should try to change the world by building shelters for the people who live in the streets. It’s the beginning of January, and it’s cold. Good luck being the president.
— Pamela Mejia, age 11, Boston
Something tells me President Obama will read this letter. Something tells me it is a very good idea. People keep saying “clean up the streets”. This 11 year old smart girl is pointing out that the homeless are people. It is not that they dirty the streets, but how would you like to live out of rubbish bins and sleep in cold hard places you can hide in? It is that homeless people suffer that makes it worth while to give them shelter. Slavery was abolished, but a homeless person has no shoestrings upon which to change their state.
It is one of the more extreme instances of enabling people to do more, rather than protecting the wealth of the very wealthy from risk. The kind of reconstruction that Mr Obama is considering could be game changing for American society in the same way that any liberation is. By shoring up the lives of the many and not enabling the very wealthy free reign to essentially gamble or the bankers to over-leverage our money at extreme and definite risk.
The world does not need mega oligarchs to run things. It needs the productivity of its greatest nation. Another letter suggested “free university for all”. These 9 year olds understand the price of freedom is to support progress.
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