An $800 billion bailout has been passed. They tell me it’s for the good of us all, but somehow I’m not convinced. The United States of America just became the world’s largest insurance company.
So let me get this straight, the federal budget is over projection (like usual) causing the government to borrow billions from private investors adding to the national debt so ... didn’t we just spend $800 billion we didn’t have, borrowed from one private sector to pay another? Like the middleman that gets stuck with the bill – and the interest.
So the plan as I basically understand it is that if we spend, we stimulate; giving breaks to the rich will in theory trickle down to the commoners and socializing corporate America’s losses through government and the taxpayer is the best option for minimizing economic loss.
Of course all the problems that existed before our economic woes still loom and the failings of the system which we are still building upon form its foundation.
We’re still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and global warming scientists are still forecasting environmental catastrophe, social security is still terminally ill, 50 million Americans have no medical insurance (I’m raising my hand), education seems to have completely fallen off the radar, not to mention that civil liberties and personal freedoms are still shrinking.
What all this eventually adds up to is the cost of life to future generations will be far more than what we are paying ... this is the battleground where the losing “War on the Middle Class” is being fought.
If the war’s now on the middle class, does that mean the war of poverty was lost?
Gas costs more, food is costing more and when was the last time you received a raise that could keep up with the cost of living? Are you between the ages of 20 and 30 and hoping to buy a house one day? If so you’d better protect your credit score at all costs starting now.
That’s the scariest thing to me – the future and how the repercussions of larger world events is felt so intimately. I look forward and find myself competitively calculating my chances. A good place to funnel this anxiety is by becoming politically more aware in the next presidential election.
John McCain would be the oldest president ever elected into office and his running mate Sarah Palin would have a medically statistical chance of one in four of becoming president. A beauty queen candidate with 20 or so months of experience running a state (Alaska) with a population comparable to the logistics of handling New York City.
With only eight weeks before election day, we have to meet a person we’ve never heard of and decide if they should be the leader of the free world; it’s not enough time. It doesn’t help that her access to the press has been limited by the Republican party and her answers to important questions echo with the confusion found in her predecessor, President George Bush.
No matter how you spin him, McCain never was the candidate for change when compared to Barack Obama. Although I’ve found his campaign disenchanting in the last few months, Obama is undeniably a man who’s risen against great odds in his own party, in his personal life and now as an American leader striving to preside over a country in turmoil. He wasn’t chosen, he decided to lead.
When I say I have faith in people, it means I know we live in a world where life isn’t always fair, but yet I still believe people can be. If enough of us had faith in each other then maybe we might be able to change the world. Even if we never did it’s nice to have hope because if you don’t, then what’s the point?
As the world and its resources get smaller and smaller, either we’ll figure out a way to work together or we’ll just tear each other apart.