Brainwashing Propaganda, or Morality Lesson?

[Vandiablo]

And? Your contribution to conversation is...? Glee?

Mirth at your outrageous statement about Georgie being unpampered. I was pretty sure Jester would answer it better than I, and I was right. But I couldn't let it pass without laughing.

And, the logic here is...? Because Newt's influence from a decade ago when he was in Congress had such persistence? You might as well blame the Beatles while you are at it.

Oh it was so so long ago was it? The deregulation of the stock market and of ownership rules done in 1998 didn't have anything to do with the bad practices that followed, eh? The credit crunch happened all by itself then. The greed of "we could be making even more money if we didn't have these old post-1929 rules to follow" had nothing to do with anything, I'm sure.

Then Reagan... Yes, everything was peachy (Georgian in fact) until Reagan screwed it all up back in the 80's? It must have been the "Just say no" thing that totally screwed up the economy.
We lost out on 30 years of weed taxes.

The idea already existed, I'm sure, but Reagan popularized "trickle-down", which basically means "what's good for the wealthy is good for the country" (sim to the car company). You know what I'm talking about: the idea that the wealthy, if given tax breaks and conditions favorable to them, will share their wealth by creating jobs and stuff that benefit everyone else. Maybe in an ideal world, where there's no such things as offshore accounts, slumlords, and foreign sweatshops. Trickle-down is behind almost everything in GOP from tax policy to labor laws to environmental policy. To many, trickle-down is a universal truth that even questioning it is ridiculous. There may be some truth to trickle-down, but the GOP goes too far.

The real leader would have told people straight up that the government screwed up

...and we're not blaming who screwed up? just "the government"?

by A) letting the housing bubble get out of control,B)pressuring banks to offer sub-prime lending, C) engaging in endless frivolous unproductive spending, weak trade negotiations, repressive regulations, and anti-business legislation sapping their nations competitiveness, driving the bulk of industry off shore, and D) not paying down the deficit while the sun was shining.

Mostly I agree, except for the anti-business legislation part. The safeguards we place on employment are "anti-business" in that they don't allow exploitation. It is a travesty that most of the crap that people buy is made by people paid starvation wages (if they're paid at all) and that often there isn't even a choice to buy more responsibly. Many "business" people are only too eager to pay "market" wages (peanuts) rather than "value-added" wages. We shouldn't allow trade that promotes exploitation but in the name of "fair trade", we do. And that's "pro-business", ugh.

My son wants me to add a smilie. :)

The past 10 years or so of "productivity" in the US economy were due to first the illusory tech bubble, and then the illusory derivatives bubble due to housing.

... and derivatives were allowed by who, and when?? (Hint: starts with 1 ends with 8)

Real growth can only come when we transform from being consumption driven, to being production driven. And, if you are truly "GREEN", then you wouldn't want to push consumption as the economic engine either.Or, do what we usually do, start another war.

So let's start making things! Like fuel-efficient cars, wind turbines, solar cells, etc.

Have a good weekend, it's beautiful here and I need to be outdoors. My son wants another smilie. B)