The On-going Debate Between Lefty Larry and Average Joe American

There has always been a political divide in this nation, and frankly a robust truthful debate of ideas from all viewpoints is part of what makes this nation strong and vibrant.  Unfortunately, that divide has now become a yawning chasm that is seemingly impassable.  It would appear that those on the right and on the left have little use for each other.  It is somewhat scary as each side accuses the other of degrading democracy and freedom.  The fact is there is indeed some truth to be found in the accusations of both sides; however, the great ironic hypocrisy and often outright falsehoods seem to come more from the left. 

Liberals and conservatives would often disagree on the methods of governing our nation, but our general goals and adherence to the principle of justice and the rule of law was the same.  Enter the militant leftists of the last twelve years.  Unlike classical liberals, the left wants to only tear down this racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic nation.  They see America as intrinsically flawed and unworthy of their love and support.  Yes, they do indeed hate America, and frankly, if I believed the lies they have been fed, I’d probably hate it too.

This is seen in the arguments between regular Joe Americans and Lefty Larrys.  My postings on this very blog for the past ten years have shown the ramped-up hostility, particularly from the left, as the haranguing and venom only intensifies.  It has become almost reflexive that if a conservative were to utter “black”, Lefty Larry will respond with “white” just to be contrary.  After all, if a conservative says something, it must automatically be wrong, ill-informed, racist, or just plain stupid – right?

Let’s give some examples of these classic exchanges, shall we?

 

Lefty Larry says, “The police are intrinsically racist throughout our nation.  They should, therefore, be defunded and the money reallocated to community social workers to de-escalate dangerous situations.”

Joe American responds, “How’s that working for you?  Crime is up well over 50% in many leftist cities such as Portland, Oregon and other leftist strongholds.  Ironically the leftist politicians that vote and advocate for this nonsense all hire their own security to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.  I am looking at you, Cori Bush and AOC. (The latter of whom also has advocated for eliminating some prisons.  Guess she thinks everyone will just decide to behave in her socialist utopia otherwise they will get a visit from the social workers.)  Yep, the left hates the police… with the exception of those in the capitol that protected AOC’s and the other leftists’ dubious virtue.”

 

Lefty Larry whines, “Everyone should be required to get the Covid19 vaccination.  Those that don’t do so and refuse to wear masks are ignorant and don’t care about others.  Laws should be passed mandating those that want to travel or work with or for the government must be vaccinated.”

Joe American retorts, “So much for individual rights and freedom there, Larry.  By the way, if a person gets vaccinated, doesn’t that theoretically protect them from the unvaccinated?  In other words, if you've been jabbed, why are you worried about others not having been? Further, if one is already vaccinated, doesn’t that make irrelevant any ‘protection’ that the dubious mask hokey-pokey that the Fauciites insist upon on everyone wearing on odd numbered days? Is it really about safety or is more about political control at this point?”

 

Lefty Larry spews, “Russia interfered in the 2016 election and that is why Trump beat St. Hillary.”

Joe American calmly responds, “No, a bunch of Russian bots on Facebook did not sway the election to Trump’s favor.  The real interference was from the Democrats and Hillary when they funded the completely debunked and salacious Steele Dossier in order that it would gain traction with the public.”

 

Lefty Larry stomps his feet in false moral superiority, “Trump paid Stormy Daniels, a porn star, to keep quiet about their affair.”

Joe American says with a raised eyebrow, “I thought sex between consenting adults was nobody else’s business according to the Left.  How about credible claims of sexual contact with non-consenting adults by Democrat Presidents.  (Juanita Broaddrick and Tara Reade anyone?)  Oh yeah, I forgot, Tara Reade’s allegation were already litigated according to Psaki.  Reade just wasn’t present for that litigation evidently.”

 

Lefty Larry angrily exclaims, “The racist Republicans don’t want the poor migrants coming in over the Mexican border because they have ‘brown skin’ and they fear that white Americans will be replaced.  We care about all humanity and simply want to help the least of our brothers and sisters.”

Joe American laughs, “Spare me the Bible verse, Skippy, since most of you leftists find your god to be the state and not the Almighty.  And us Americans have no problem with people immigrating to America if they do so LEGALLY.  This is not about compassion for the Left.  This is about adding millions of reliable Democrat voters in the future.  Want proof?  How come Biden and the left won’t let the more conservative brown-skinned Cubans into America as they risk their lives to escape communism?  Is it because these Cubans know better than to vote for policies that turn America more like Cuba every day… for the common good, of course?”

 

Lefty Larry bellows, “And how about that ‘stable genius’ of Trump?  He was not mentally competent to be president.”

Joe American, while doubled over, “Can’t.  Stop.  Laughing.  Do ya’ll hear yourselves?  You supposedly elected a senile man with more votes than anyone in history, including Obama, and he cannot string more than five words together without them becoming unintelligible.  C’mon man!  You know… the thing.  Our adversaries are both amazed and amused at our stupidity in putting this dementia-addled corrupt leader of the Biden crime family into the oval office.”

 

Lefty Larry praisingly states, “Joe Biden is building back better our country and rescinding all of Trump’s horrible policies.  He is taking care of the poor and making our economy stronger.”

Joe American retorts, “Can you smell the bovine excrement, folks?  Biden in his first week in office made sure to undo some of the greatest things done for our economy.  Under Trump we became net exporters of energy for the first time in over five decades.  Senile Joe comes in and immediately cancels the XL pipeline and energy exploration/drilling on federal lands.  Gas and energy prices have sky-rocketed now, and are higher than the balls on a giraffe, which ironically hurts the poorest Americans the most.  His inflationary policies have also caused a huge spike in food and housing too.  Lumber is now a better investment than gold… almost.”

 

Lefty Larry snivels, “The Black Lives Matter and Antifa organizations are only trying to correct societal issues and racism.  Those of you who disagree, do so only because you are racists yourselves.”

Joe American shakes his head, “So is that why these punks tore down the statue of the elk in Portland?  Who knew that elk were racist!  I suppose burning black businesses, barricading police officers of all colors inside their police stations before setting them on fire, and shooting retired black police officer, David Dorn, as he tried to protect a pawn shop from looters is all just a part of the left’s social justice program… right?  Hell, a Utah BLM member stated that the American flag is a ‘symbol of hate’.  Yep, to the left, it probably is.  Even Mara Gay, who is a NY Times staffer and also an MSNBC analyst, said she was ‘disturbed’ by all of the American flags she saw when she was out on Long Island visiting a friend.  Here is an ‘unbiased’ member of the leftist media propagating the REAL big lie.”

 

Lefty Larry self-righteously proclaims, “Those of you that are against critical race theory being championed in our schools must be racists yourselves.”

Joe American snickers, “Nope.  We believe people should be treated according to the content of their character and not the color of their skin.  I know that is now ‘racist’ to you anti-racist leftists though; it is about equity rather than equality, right?  By all means we should teach American history, warts and all, to our children.  We should not overwhelmingly focus on ONLY those bad chapters which America has always worked to resolve justly over our history though.  CRT is the evolution of critical theory, which is a Marxist interpretation of the oppressed and oppressor.  CRT simply comes along and does it one better by saying that all people of color are the oppressed and that whites are the oppressors.  The bible and Lincoln both told us that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and yet the left through their racist anti-racism have set race relations in this nation back by many decades.  Hey, Lefty Larry, do you think maybe we should point out and decry real racism when it is found, but otherwise focus on those things that bring all of us together as Americans into this once great melting pot?  Nah, that would decrease leftist fundraising, amiright?”

 

Arguments between Leftists and the rest of the country are basically innumerable.  The funny thing is that I strongly suspect that the actual leftists are a distinct minority in this country.  They simply are very vocal and have the willing support of the leftist media doing their bidding.  The rest of America chooses to put up with the nonsense, but will eventually stand up more and more so as they get to their breaking point.  Already, regular Joes are beginning to push back against leftist nonsense.

Ultimately, I think the answer is to return to true scholarship and education rather than agenda-driven indoctrination that currently has overtaken our schools and universities.  Until that happens and we demand the truth in science, reading, history, civics, and other vital subjects is taught, we can only expect the snowflake glitter-brigades to become even more shrill in their histrionics as they seek to divide Americans. Hang on boys and girls!

 

The Obama Economy

Over the past few months, I have repeatedly heard a lot of left-wing sources in the media and the blogosphere proclaim what a success the Obama presidency has been. The proclamation is how this brilliant man has managed to turn around the devastation to our country and its economy that was bequeathed to him by his Republican predecessor.

Now I am no fan of George W. Bush when it comes to how he governed our economy, and there absolutely is plenty of room for criticism there; however, has our current president really turned around our nation's economy?

When one refuses to listen to the Democrat spin-machine and looks at the actual data, the truth of the matter is readily apparent, and it is a truth that all but the most partisan progressives instinctively know.

The St. Louis Federal Reserve has a research wing (FRED) that pulls together from various governmental sources any number of economic data indicators that tell a much different story than those proclaimed on MS-NBC, by the DNC chair-woman, or from the Obama administration.  Let's take a look, shall we?

First, lets look at the total federal government debt as it relates to our gross domestic product.  In 2008, then-senator Obama rightly criticized President Bush for his "unpatriotic" and "irresponsible" spending.  It seems that when Obama took over the oval office though, his even-greater spending was no longer unpatriotic. Our economic output of our entire nation is the same as what our national debt is now.  Indeed our national debt has soared from $9 trillion when Bush left office to over $19 trillion today.  Irresponsible and unpatriotic indeed!

And here is another way of looking at our federal debt:

Next, the passage of the Affordable Care Act was touted as critical to providing health coverage to those that were uninsured and reducing health care costs for those that already had insurance.  President Obama said that his Obama-care would save the average family $2500 per year in costs.  The reality of it though is that the average family is now paying $2500 a year MORE in costs.

Of course taxes have been on the rise for many decades.  George W. Bush did cut taxes during his presidency, but the Democrat-controlled congress let the child credit provision expire under Obama's administration.  Further, net taxes increased along with increased spending and costly regulations.

With the economic recession that started in Bush's term in office, median family income continued to decline precipitously throughout the Obama administration.

With the higher costs of taxes, consumer goods, health care, and energy under Obama's leadership, the number of Americans that can afford to own their own homes has declined under his watch too.

Of course employment tanked during the end of 2008, but despite the sycophantic progressive medias' narrative to the contrary, Obama has not restored the real U-6 unemployment rate to pre-recession levels.  To further support this point, look at the labor force participation rate which shows how many people actually gave up looking for jobs and thus dropped out of the labor force.  (And this despite huge influxes of federal dollars to help put Americans to work with "shovel-ready jobs" that Obama later acknowledged never did exist.)

Our true unemployment rate for the nation is STILL in double digits today.

This next graph shows the effects of our money supply due to quantitative easings that began in the final months of the Bush administration and then continued with several additional rounds during the Obama administration.  This is a very dangerous policy that has the potential long term effect of creating hyper-inflation with the increased money supply based on no solid assets.  It is a dangerous policy that did not work during the great depression or for Japan in the early 2000's.  It's long term effects will most likely come back to haunt the U.S. economy severely... after Obama has left office.

There are many things that can be said about this next graph.  The first that comes to mind is that Obama so loved the poor, that he created millions more of them.  While the federal government touts their SNAP welfare program as a success, the fact that more people are in need of governmental assistance should be a sign that our economy is not going in the right direction.  Indeed, progressives gauge such programs' success by how many people are using them; conservatives gauge these by how many people no longer need them and are now self-sufficient.

Another arguably un-constitutional aspect of the misnamed Affordable Care Act was to remove private banks from loaning money for student loans and thus rolled that function into the federal government where lack of efficiency and greater government control holds sway on our higher educational system.

At the end of the day, despite the progressive media's sycophantic ravings to the contrary, our economy has not recovered and indeed its core underpinnings are in very precarious positions.  Unfortunately when things do start collapsing, Obama will likely have left office and thereby not be held accountable for his egregious mismanagement of our economy via failed progressive policies.

  Of course the media will dutifully find a way to spin this as the Republicans' fault accordingly. 

I am sure that will provide great comfort to all of us Americans afflicted by this Obama economy.

What Progressives Have Wrought for the Economy

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  With that in mind, I thought I would share a few pictures, charts, and graphs that illustrate perfectly what a disastrous job President Obama and the progressives in congress have done with their "help" of our economy.   

With all of this highly relevant data, it seems fairly  obvious that re-electing Obama and the Democrats is not the solution to our economic problems.  And it doesn't take anywhere near a thousand words to come up with that painfully apparent conclusion.

The Never-ending Hypocrisy of Nancy Pelosi

The consummate politician (and I mean that in the worst possible context of the phrase), former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sat down with Bob Schieffer on CBS’s Sunday talk show, Face the Nation,  a week and a half ago and once again proved that she and her Democratic colleagues should be held to a different standard than those that the "evil" Republicans are.  See the video for the particular moment that illustrates this "fact" so precisely.  Following is part of the transcript of that discussion:

Bob Schieffer:  You were talking in kind of a different way when unemployment went to 5% under George Bush.  What you said then,  ‘Americans are struggling with skyrocketing energy prices’ (gas was only $3/gallon then) and you said this morning… this is January 4^th 2008, ‘This morning’s jobs report confirms what most Americans already knew- President Bush’s economic policies have failed our country’s middle class.’

Aren’t Republicans entitled to say you know, if you got gas was 3 dollars and unemployment was 5% and the president has failed the American people, don’t they have a right to say that this president has failed the American people?

Nancy Pelosi: Well if you want to go into the past, we can talk about the past all you want.  The public wants to know about the future.  What are you going to do to create jobs- good paying jobs-

Bob Schieffer: Well what are you going to do?

Nancy Pelosi: Well as I said, what the president has done has improved the situation from where it may have been.

Bob Schieffer: But the fact is that the congress has been in session since January and has done basically nothing.

Nancy Pelosi: Well you  can talk to Mr. Boehner about that.

Bob Schieffer:  So it’s all the their fault?  It’s not your fault?

So let me get this straight, Ms. Pelosi- 5% unemployment and $3/gallon gas under Bush equals a failed economic policy; however, 9.1% unemployment and $4/gallon gas under Obama equals "he kept it from being even worse" and "nobody cares about the past"?  In that amazingly audacious exchange in a long career of such hypocritical moments of yours, that one really is near the top of the heap.

One wonders what happened to the “fact” spouted by President Obama that his egregious and asinine spending was critically necessary in order to hold down unemployment below 8%.  I think America would today breathe a sigh of relief if the actual REAL unemployment rate were only 8%.  As for keeping energy prices low, Obama’s executive order to halt offshore drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has only served to further increase our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Ms. Pelosi is quick to claim that they inherited a huge deficit from Bush, and indeed they did; however, Obama and Pelosi’s Democratically-controlled 111^th congress have since added another $1.6 TRILLION to that deficit, while doing absolutely nothing to cut spending or create sustainable jobs anywhere in the country.  Indeed the signature piece of legislation passed by Pelosi and Reid along strictly partisan lines and then signed into unconstitutional law by President Obama has been estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to actually kill 800,000 jobs in the course of the coming years.  The fact that the law further doesn’t reduce health care costs, despite all of the Democratic rhetoric and promises that it would to the contrary, only further exacerbates the problem.

Once again, it would seem that being a Democratic elected official means that one can expect to be held to a different standard than that of their colleagues across the political aisle.  It means that only the vile and dastardly Republicans should be held to account for their statements and their actions.  Sorry Ms. Pelosi, but you are selling make-believe, and we don't buy that here.

Note: the section of the video for the transcript above is at 2:42 into it.  The entire video is good though in showing the dissembling, deception, and hypocrisy of the former Speaker of the House.

Obama Supports New Oil Drilling... In Brazil

In a truly remarkable statement this week, President Obama has enthusiastically announced his support for new offshore drilling for oil. Yep, you did indeed read that right. Unfortunately his support is for Brazil to commence this drilling and not the United States. This is particularly ironic because this very action is something that he and his administration have consistently banned and restricted in the United States after last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig.

Further, our president intends to back up his support for Brazil with the promise of U.S. taxpayer financing to help fund Brazil’s drilling operations, which consequently will create thousands of new jobs in Brazil. He is quoted as saying,

“We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers. At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.”

One wonders why President Obama wants to be one of Brazil's best customers of oil and gas when there are millions of Americans who would be eager to be the best customers of new supplies of oil and gas produced by workers in Louisiana, Alaska, and Virginia? Indeed, the consequences of President Obama’s drilling moratorium last summer and the administration’s subsequent refusal to issue new drilling permits has been partially responsible for the soaring gas prices we are currently experiencing.

Further, these actions alone have cost the United States a loss of at least 20,000 jobs. The long term consequences of that moratorium and lack of new drilling permits has further caused at least seven deep water oil rigs to plan to leave the Gulf of Mexico for work elsewhere on the globe. Those jobs will likely be gone from U.S. shores for many years to come.

So while our gasoline and diesel prices continue to climb drastically, especially with the upheaval in the Middle East, our President continues to prevent the development of domestic sources of energy from going forward. He then applauds this very same development in a foreign nation and promises U.S. taxpayer dollars in support of the venture. One wonders if he realizes that he is supposed to be working to help the economy of the nation for which he presumably is the president thereof and to thus create jobs in the UNITED STATES.

The incompetence, hypocrisy, and lack of foresight in our President has reached capricious levels. One wonders what gas prices and the REAL unemployment rate will look like come 2012 accordingly?

A New Record in Deficit Spending

It would seem that the federal government has achieved another history-breaking record.  For February 2011 the federal government posted the largest monthly deficit in the entire history of the United States.  Indeed, this $223 Billion deficit for the month of February alone dwarfs the $161 Billion deficit that the government posted for the ENTIRE YEAR in 2007.  In other words, Barack Obama's government is running up larger deficits in one MONTH than the government posted in an entire YEAR only a few short years ago.

Meanwhile, Democrats in congress are screaming about the Republican's still-anemic attempts to cut the deficit for this current year's budget.  According to the Washington times, "a top Senate Democrat said his party can accept no more than $6 billion in domestic cuts."  We just posted $223 Billion in deficit spending last month alone, and the Democrats claim that the most they can cut in spending for the remainder of the fiscal year is $6 Billion dollars!  They truly are clueless as to the peril our economy and indeed our nation is in with this unsustainable spending.

March 18th will be the next vote over the continuing resolution to try and fund the government for the remainder of the year.  Currently the Democrats are threatening to reject the House GOP plan to cut $57 billion in spending for the rest of this fiscal year. They say those cuts are too much.  Instead of being serious about the need to cut all but the most vital CONSTITUTIONALLY authorized governmental functions, President Obama put forth a budget that was full of additional spending that we simply do not have the money for right now.  As he stated in his State of the Union Speech, he wants to spend our taxpayer dollars to fund such extra unnecessary items like high speed rail despite the fact that a vast majority of Americans don't want it and won't use it.

Further, if union agitators succeed in bullying governors like Scott Walker and John Kasich and do manage to impose their statist agenda at any price so that tax payers will continue to have to fund public union pensions and health care to degrees that exceed those of even private employers, then we are bound to collapse under the weight of our own fiscal malfeasance very soon. Things are quickly coming to a head.  The Republicans in congress absolutely must hold the line and insist that their cuts be implemented. 

Those cuts alone are pathetically impotent when it comes to the monthly deficits we are now seeing and indeed they need to be even bolder in the GOP's plans to balance our budget. Unfortunately, when you have Democrats that seemingly don't even acknowledge that we are in a dire situation and refuse to even exceed $6 Billion in cuts for the remainder of this year, it will make the battle an exceptionally difficult one.  Take note which Democrats (or Republicans for that matter) are not taking this seriously, send them an email or call, and make damned sure to vote them out of office come November 2012, assuming we still have a functioning government and nation by then.

The Whole System Is Rotten

Guest Post by Free0352

You can read this story and other exceptionally insightful postings at Free's blog, John Galt for President.

The Whole System Is Rotten
President Obama is out telling us all - once again - that we've turned a corner and we as a nation are finally digging out of the hole.

Sorry to say it Barry, but it just ain't so.

We'll get back to Barry, but first I want to talk about Oliver Stone's latest film Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to his most famous film besides Platoon... Wall Street.

Everybody beat this film up but I'm here to tell you folks, I loved it! I remember reading reviews on Pajama's website that called it anti capitalist and thinking "Oh I don't know about seeing that one," but I loved the first film so much I just gave in. I'm glad I did.

First, I found the film a profoundly PRO capitalist film. I don't know if that was stone's goal, but that's what he made. Second, it spends two hours beating up TARP, and so of course you know that kept my attention!

I don't want to ruin the film for you, but I'll tell you the thrust of the film - which made I think two very important points.

The theme is that of "Moral Hazard." It's demonstrated all over the film in many ways and situations. From the protagonist's love of his fiance... and her money - corrupting his intentions toward her however initially honest, to the main antagonist (not Gordon Gekko this time BTW) pleading for a bail out at the NYCFED during the sub prime crash. This movies message is when there are no consequences for our actions we loose our moral footing.

The second point, which can be encapsulated in Michael Douglas' brilliant monologue which he gives speaking to a class of collage students early in the film, is that the system is sick. Surprisingly, I agree with Oliver Stone here 150%.

Now back to Barry and the economy.

We can talk all day about Government's role in our financial crisis. Will things improve under Democrat or Republican leadership? Will this tax policy or that tax policy turn the corner? Stimulus or tax cuts?

But here's the sad fact. While Government certainly played a role in the 2007 crash, there were other's playing roles as well. Government might have pushed some banks to give loans to minorities who could never pay the principle, and it might have relaxed the reserve requirements too much... but at the end of the day private citizens caused the crash. Not just banker's either. It's easy to blame the rich trader in toxic derivatives, but no one wants to blame the family of four that took out a third mortgage and never thought about the bottom. Our Government owes 14.01 trillion dollars. That's disgusting. We citizens borrowed over the years a whopping 16.9 trillion... and most of that money can't be paid back...

We can fix our Government, but we have to fix ourselves first. We're junkies to credit.

And there lies the problem with America. Our addiction. Credit. It's going to destroy America. Our system once upon a time was about building things, manufacturing things, producing things. Production! Today it's sick, it's about spending and consumption and credit, credit, credit. Why else do you think Obama couldn't stop talking about "Getting credit flowing again" when he signed the stimulus. Our economy isn't built on steel, cars, coal, trade, construction, or technology anymore. Today it's built on a giant circular wheel of borrowed money. No new wealth is made, already existing wealth simply changes hands. A system like that cannot last. It's sick, and it has to correct.

It started when Reagan bailed out the savings and loans. That's when the "Moral Hazard" Oliver Stone talks about in Money Never Sleeps came into play. Had we just never made that one move, perhaps today we'd be okay. Not bailing out the savings and loans would have cost Americans a few billion. That's chump change today. But we didn't learn at all. Clinton bailed out the usual suspects when they got into trouble down in Mexico when they leveraged Mexican securities. Goldmahn, Bear Sterns... we saw them all again in 2007. The logical extension of the Moral Hazard had come to fruition. By then, companies like Goldmahn figured why not throw the dice at the biggest, most potentially lucrative short term investments they could come up with and then leverage them to the hilt. It would work, or if it failed the tax payers would make sure that the "too big to fail" golden bull wouldn't die.

They were right of course. Tragically.

You know what... it wasn't just Bear Sterns. It was everybody. It wasn't just banks, it was GM and AIG and Microsoft and Google. It wasn't just Fanny Mae or Freddie Mac it was the Smiths on Main Street up to their necks in credit card debt and home equity loans. Our whole country went mad borrowing. The system got sick because of the moral hazard of simply thinking... "Well, if the bottom drops out, I'll get a bail out." Americans weren't shocked when George Bush signed TARP because he spent 700 billion dollars. They were shocked it bailed out banks and not them. No one even cared about the moral hazard, they just wanted their piece of the tax dollar parachute.

People said I was crazy in 2006 when I was all over Blonde Sagacity and every other blog screaming "Sell your house now! Cash in your 401k and buy gold! Save up a year's salary now! Pay off all your debt!" I even got baned from some blogs because people thought I was literally a lunatic.

Well, those houses likely are worth half what they were in 05-06, your 401k is hemorrhaging money, gold has gained 300% in value, and you're barley making minimum balance payments right? Whose crazy now?

So if I was right way back in 2005 when I saw this coming, perhaps I'm right today in 2011 when I tell you that until we fix our broken system... recovery isn't coming?

Here are some uncomfortable facts.

Recovery isn't coming because at the end of the day, we're propping up the sick system of moving money around instead of producing things that build wealth. Moving money around a consumption based economy isn't going to work. That system collapsed. The more we bail it out, and kick the can down the road the more pain we're going to feel later on.

Corrections are necessary in Capitalism. Capitalism is Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. We've used our government to prop up so many unfit companies and life styles for so long, that weakness has spread like a cancer throughout our economy and now our economy is too weak to stand on it's own. We should have celebrated the death of a company as an opportunity for a stronger one to take it's place. We didn't do that, and the cancer spread. Weak companies, and weak citizens were the result. Now our government is propping up both. It can't do this forever, and when private and public sectors collapse the weight of both crashing will destroy America as we know it.

We as a nation may, or may not, come through it. But the inevitable correction isn't terribly far off no two ways about it. The critical decisions have already been made, and we as a country made the wrong ones. The consequences of that are as more sick companies the government can't rescue die off, more employees turn to the government instead of self reliance and the system gets sicker. As more companies start to die, more of them turn to government and the cancer becomes even more systemic. Our system is terminal, it's only a matter of time now.

I just wish we'd get it over with. It's going to happen, it has to happen.

That's okay too. Our nation might be stronger after the correction, or it might not. At least at that point we can move on and get off this hospice economy. I'm tired of failure. In the mean time, take any announcements of "RECOVERY IS FINALLY HERE!" with the grains of salt such announcements deserve.

You know the truth. Deep down, we all do.

Our country has been through far worse. The Civil War alone killed off nearly 700,000 people in a time when our population was only a tenth of what it is today. The inevitable systemic collapse pales in comparison to that. We need honest leaders to tell the truth so Americans can go into this thing with their eyes open, that's all. Armed with information, they can fight their way through it. We can't afford to deny reality anymore.


P.S.

If you'd like to see Douglas' great monologue in the film Money Never Sleeps, go here. It's about 30 minutes 15 seconds into it.