It’s St. Ronnie of Reagan’s Fault October 14
Saying the financial crisis is worsening is a like saying the Grand Canyon has a lot of hole. When things get this bad, international financiers hole up in a spa for pedies and manies to sip cocktails and polish their Senate testimony. In other words, they get all up in their AIG corporate executive ass and shit.
At the dark heart of capitalism is greed and a good amount of hubris, as the AIG spa wallowers were paid handsomely to demonstrate. US corporatists and “lazy fare” capitalists have told us for years that their brand of econo-theory is the only way to run - or I should say own - a railroad. These are the folks who have brandy and cigars over whether bailing banks out and universal health care is (OMIGOD!) socialism. Their verdict is yes, but Ma and Pa kettle see their vast $1.98 financial empire collapse in very different terms.
These are also the folks who’ve been doing the naked happy dance since the fall of communism. To them, St. Ronnie of Reagan is the God who put the boot to the Evil EmpireTM making way for the glories of unrestricted capitalism. Which is to say he paved the way for the financial debauchery of the aforementioned brandy and cigar set.
Today, these people are McPalin supporters - which explains a lot about the wagon-rutted economic path the country is been. In buying St. Ronnie’s mythology, they missed a small detail - Ronnie didn’t bump off the commies bare-chested and single-handedly. He merely outspent a weak, battered, and corrupt country in the race toward Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). He didn’t use glorious capitalism to overwhelm them with knowledge and capitalist fervor, he used the brute force of gobs of money to kick the Russian kid with scoliosis to the curb.
The problem was, Reagan jacked up government spending to outbid the Ruskies for world domination. But the bidding threatened to break us too, so Ronnie got the “gumint isn’t the answer, it’s the problem” religion. Like any drunk fresh on the wagon he began unloading unfunded government programs onto the states and plowing shitloads of money into nothing but defense spending. Despite all his crowing, he didn’t lower taxes, he just put them on someone else’s tab. He effectively put the fox at the door of the hen house telling big business to go econo-nuclear on us.
We are now reaping what he sowed - an economy based on paper and allowed to run too long without adult supervision. Now we find ourselves with our own case of late-onset scoliosis. Our modern day Reagan has screwed not only this nation, but the rest of the planet too. His response to this crisis is a lot like it was to Katrina - appear every couple of days to say he’s got a handle on things and watch the lines drop through the bottom of the stock charts. No one except a small percentage of inmates in state mental institutions believes him anymore - now he’s just the the King of Krap, Poppy’s Pootiehead, the winner of steeply diminishing polling returns.
It seems that when Reagan asked Gorby to tear down that wall, the translators must have gotten it wrong. They heard “tear down that capitalism” instead.
And I’ll be damned, he and most of the bucketheads since have done just that.
The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!
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daveawayfromhome Oct 14
I would say that you’d never be able to run your home finances the way the government runs theirs (ours, dammit! Gotta remember that), but that’d be wrong. That’s not to say that it’s a good way to run the nation’s finances, but just ask the too-common poor schmuck with a huge credit card balance, no savings in the bank and busted transmission (or whatever) how he manages his money, and you’ll get an answer just as bad as the one your congressman will give you.
Maybe politicians ought to start telling people to look at their own finances when wondering how to run the country’s.
Credit is an appropriate device for getting big-ticket items like housing or your automobile (infrastructure or education - things that you’ll use, potentially, for a large part of your lifetime), but not meals at a fancy restaurant or weekends in Vegas (vanity wars or corporate welfare, things that are driven by short-term gain). How many people are going to learn that lesson the hard way if the economy goes south the way many think it will?
And will they remember the lesson when things turn upwards?
daveawayfromhome’s last blog post..tuesday matinee
Dusty Oct 15
Great post Poobie. I am sick of hearing about St. Ronnie. If anyone even took the time to read the wiki on him they would know he raised taxes and all the other shit you have rightfully attributed to him and his ilk.
Damn good rant m’dear!
Dusty’s last blog post..Make Poverty History
Omnipotent Poobah Oct 15
Dave,
Considering how long EZ credit has been around, I’d guess they will NEVER learn those lessons. I know my thrice-bankrupted sister hasn’t, and she’s 60 years old.
Her credit’s so bad now, the bank won’t even let her have an account. She has to do all her banking via one of the legalized loan shark check cashing services.
Now that I think of it, she’d could make a bid for a congressional seat. I’d say she’d get it too, what with her felon convictions and all.
Dusty,
Thanks you.
Ronnie always did piss me off. I could never see his “great” deeds or even see him as the Great Comunicator”. The idjit couldn’t even read a cue card without Nancy standing behind him and whipsering in his ear.
The thing that really irks me though is that we’d almost climbed out of the mess he made bfore Captain Pickledick started pushing us into the much again.
I’M MAD A HELL AN I WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!