Monday, November 3, 2008

Good Morning on this day before the election.  The weather here is taking its cue from the campaigns and heating up.  We are supposed to be in the 70s for most of this week before crashing into the 30s for the weekend.  That is between 15 and 20 degrees warmer than is normal for early November.

As usual I am running through my favorite bloggers and google alerts.  I just finished the new tomdispatch and Tom Englehardt provides a very lucid piece on the 'legacy' of George W. Bush.  I think the following is the best summation of what has happened to us over the last almost eight years and what will happen to the Shrub: 

"The bubble world of George W. Bush was bound to be burst. Based on fantasies, false promises, lies, and bait-and-switch tactics, it was destined for foreclosure. At home and abroad, after all, it had been created using the equivalent of subprime mortgages and the result, unsurprisingly, was a dismally subprime administration.

Now, of course, the bill collector is at the door and the property -- the USA -- is worth a good deal less than on November 4, 2000. George W. Bush is a discredited president; his job approval ratings could hardly be lower; his bubble world gone bust.

Nonetheless, let's remember one other theme of his previous life. Whatever his failures, Bush always walked away from disastrous dealings enriched, while others were left holding the bag. Don't imagine for a second that the equivalent isn't about to repeat itself. He will leave a country functionally under the gun of foreclosure, a world far more aflame and dangerous than the one he faced on entering the Oval Office. But he won't suffer."

I think the key phrase is the last one: HE WON'T SUFFER.  Living proof that life isn't fair.

Over the last month I have watched the frenzy over the stock market and the panic over the credit freeze with some bemusement.  I haven't thought much of the resulting bail-outs and 'rescues' because they don't address what I think is the core problem in our economy.  We have been losing good jobs at an increasing rate since the turn of the millennium.  Oh, I know that Shrubs' spokespeople extolled the number of jobs the economy produced in the early years.  Haven't heard much bragging in the last couple of years, however, as job loss exceeded job creation.  But all along, I have looked at the numbers and noticed that the high paying manufacturing jobs left to be replaced by low paying service jobs.  Finally someone has connected the dots.  Take a look at Deleware Watch's post today.


1 comment:

Kay Dennison said...

You hit the nail right on the head, Mary!

Even worse, the business owners blackmailed the workers into taking cuts in wages and bennies with threats of moving outside the country!

Our city is dying because of this. Some of our major employers are gone or a shadow of themselves. We tell our children not to come home when they finish college because there's nothing here for them. We are an aging and poor community that is dying.

The Chamber of Commerce sent the Neighborhood Leadership Council, of which, I'm a member a survey asking what can be done to bring young people back to our city and make it grow. I took one look at it and got out a marker and wrote in capital letters: JOBS! GOOD JOBS!