Saturday, September 25, 2010

Two Years of Change After the Train Wreck

How can I get you to vote in the next couple of weeks.

You've heard the reports: The Republicans are counting on a mid-term landslide to return their candidates to Congress.  They're counting on the frustration of voters of a growing but still small conservative constituency to be so outrageous and noisy -- promulgating lies and innuendo -- that voters who supported Obama's election two years ago will lose heart and stay at home.

I find this tactic really annoying, and it's making me mad.  Really! This is the party that screwed us, and now they're trying to get back in power.

But maybe I'm being too harsh on the Republicans.  Is that possible?

So I started doing a little research on the history of Republican actions -- using their words and reports -- to see if maybe I'm just being too partisan.

I wanted to see if maybe I missed something that might change my mind.

The following clips are -- except the last one -- I found on YouTube.  What I found might help you decide to get out and vote.

The Warnings in 2006

In 2006 -- after six years of Bush-era economics -- economist Peter Schiff was warning that we were heading for a massive recession.  But it wasn't the message that the US wanted to hear.  In fact, Bush economists were telling us that everything was hunky-dory.  Listen to this debate. It's amazing how the two world views diverge: One listing out the reasons for concern, and the other pooh-poohing those concerns. It was a heated debate, so the piece is long.  But watch it.  If you memory of that time is a little flakey, this will bring it back into focus.




My view in 2006
So what was my personal response to the dire warnings that the housing bubble was going to kill the economy?  Like every good American, I listened to the Bush economists, and I went out an spent more!  We bought a second house, and piled on more debt.  It was a nice house, and it helped us out at the time.  But as the housing bubble started to collapse, it became harder and harder to find a buyer for it when we needed to sell.  Fortunately, on a bright day in September of 2008, it finally sold way below what we paid for it.  Our teeth gritted, we lost at least $20,000 on the sale.  But the day the papers closed, we didn't realize how lucky we were.  Why?

The Meltdown Melts Down

Because the very next day Lehmann Brothers collapsed.  And the Dow Jones Industrial Average took one of the biggest nose-dives in history, dropping well over 400 points on a single day.

Remember that day, in September of 2008?



Goodness! But isn't Henry Paulson watching this?  Aren't the Republicans concerned?  Well here is Hank Paulson's response to the crisis:



"It's Not Our Fault"

So it wasn't their fault. It was, according to Paulson, because he couldn't go to Congress -- then in the hands of the Democrats -- to ask for help.

And yet, a few weeks later, that's exactly what Paulson and Bush did. And then Bush explained this thing called TARP to the nation.

Below is the entire address to the nation that Bush gave to us.  In it, he details not only what's going on, but how we got to that state of chaos, and what they were planning to do about it.

Watching this clip is really kind of sad, because for the first time, it seems, Bush actually seems to take some interest in the economy and the real lives of Americans. 



But wait, isn't Bush's address right out of Peter Schiff's portfolio?  Didn't he say the same things?

Well, yeah. His economic policy of "no-regulation" created an environment by which the entire financial structure of the US was threatened.  Everybody -- from Wall Street to Main Street -- was suddenly about to go down the drain.  So they had to act, and they intended to act swiftly. 

The TARP: The Fed to Save Us All!

Bush and Paulson made us a pledge: The troubled assets would be purchased from the banks by the U.S. Govt, and the Govt would hold onto them until their value rose, at which time they would be resold at a profit.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Crisis averted? Right?

Well, not exactly.  Just a few weeks later, Paulson changed the rules: Instead of actually buying the failing assets -- the mortgage backed securities -- the Govt would simply buy the banks for a period of time, letting the banks keep the assets on their books.  This would let the banks reap the benefits of any upward shift in the housing market, and later -- ideally with the money they gained from those sales -- they would buy back their businesses from the Govt.

Nationalizing the Banks -- The real bailout.

But wait! Isn't that the bailout that Bush said he wouldn't support?  Isn't that "Nationalizing" the banks themselves. Well, yeah.  Sort of.  Except the Govt. wouldn't buy all the banks.  In fact, it just meant that the Govt was going to bail out Wall Street.

And when asked about this, Paulson had this to say:



Before Obama
All this happened before Obama even took office. And if you're a conspiracy theorist, you might conclude that the Republicans -- knowing that the Democrats were going to win the election in 2008 -- decided to trash the country's finances so badly that nobody could fix it before the 2010 elections.  (Personally, I don't think that even the Republicans could be that diabolical, but there are some people out there who do.) 

So what did the country look like before Obama was sworn in? The following video, made in October of 2008, tells the story:



What the Republican's Help For America

Obama inherited a three trillion dollars budget deficit when he was sworn in.  The country was mired in two wars. The economy was on life-support.  The unemployment situation was (and is) devastating households, while Health Care costs were rising at a such a rate that 17% of the population had no insurance coverage.  Moreover, the infrastructure of the nation -- both physical and educational -- had been allowed to deteriorate to its worse condition since the 1930s.  


Normally, one would think that both legislators from political parties would see the challenges facing the country, roll up their sleeves, and go to work.  

But it didn't work that way.  Here's a political video purportedly representing where the Republicans were at in  March of 2009:



What the Democrats Did.

So, with no help from Republicans, what did the Democrats accomplish in the two years since Obama was elected?

Here's an abbreviated list of laws signed, aimed at rebuilding the U.S.

We still have a long way to go -- especially with unemployment at record percentages.  But there's been a sincere effort to rebuild the U.S., and considering the size of the hole that was dug by Republicans, we've made some real progress.

The idea of returning Republicans to power in either the House or the Senate is madness.  But that's what they're selling.

We have to get out and vote.
It's easy to see we're still on the way out of this mess.  It's easy to mistake progress in this atmosphere of lies and innuendo as no progress at all. 

But please consider where we've been, and how far we still have to go.  We're coming through a valley of despair right now and it's hard work.  But we're headed in the right direction.

Maybe you don't like Obama. 

Maybe the Bush years look really romantic, with all the money we were borrowing, and all the junk we were buying.

Maybe the Republican ideology has its attractions.

But the idea that a nation without government or a nation with a government of business hedonists will be our salvation is crazy!  And that's crap Republicans is serving.

It's really important to vote, to keep the momentum going.

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