What Independents Want

David Brooks is a token "conservative" sitting on The Senile Old Lady's mantle above the fireplace.  Only the New York Times could consider this squishy middler (but quite good writer!) a conservative.

He's a good enough guy.  I read him often, and I even agree with him sometimes.  I really like this:

If I were a politician trying to win back independents, I’d say something like this: When I was a kid, I had a jigsaw puzzle of the U.S. Each state was a piece, and on it there was a drawing showing what people made there. California might have movies; Washington State, apples; New York, fashion or publishing. That puzzle represented an economy that was diverse and deeply rooted. 

We’ve lost that. First Wall Street got disproportionately big, then Washington. It’s time to return to fundamentals. No short-term fixes. Government should do what it’s supposed to do: schools, roads, basic research. It should not be picking C.E.O.’s or setting pay or fizzing up the economy with more debt. It should give people the tools to compete, not rig the competition. Lines of restraint have dissolved, and they need to be restored.

 Amen!  The Feral Government needs to retreat behind its constitutional boundaries and free the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in state and local communities.  One size does not fit all, Nancy!  As for Wall Street gamblers and inept car manufacturers?  Freedom also means the freedom to fail...

NY Times - David Brooks

CEOs Rushing into U.S. Treasury Building Trample Policeman to Death

-- Satire --

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Federal police were busy this morning reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a security guard after a crowd of CEOs burst through the doors of the U.S. Treasury looking for a corporate handout.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individuals in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Jim Rockford, a D.C. police spokesman.

Other bureaucrats were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and CEOs stepped over him and became irate when officials said the Treasury was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

Police said about 2,000 CEOs and CFOs were gathered outside the Treasury building before its 8 a.m. opening. The impatient crowd knocked the employee to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion...

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This corporate bailout has hit 8.5 Trillion Dollars.

A million of something is difficult for us to visualize; a trillion almost impossible. Let me put this into perspective:

- One trillion dollars, laid end to end, would be 94 million miles long. This is well past the orbit of Mars and almost to the asteroid belt. Light would take over eight minutes to travel this distance!

- 8.5 trillion dollars, stacked in currency bundles, would be enough to re-create three Great Pyramids - of solid cash. You could make almost six Sears Towers.

- $28,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

I considered writing a rant about the sacking of our Treasury and tax dollars, but this anonymous quote says it all, succinctly:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship."

-Hugh Farnham