OCCUPY THE TEA PARTY!!

Watching Frontline's series Money Power and Wall Street gave me a new sense of what happened to America during and after the near depression that started in 2007.  George Bush started it! No.  Barack Obama made it worse!  No.  Bush cut taxes and went to war in Iraq and we still don't have a good reason why.  Yes.  Barack Obama focused on reforming healthcare when reforming Wall Street was more vital at the time.  Yes.

In reality Bill Cinton is more to blame for the economic meltdown.  Just before leaving office he and the financial experts in his cabinet and lets face it Wall Streeters who lobbied them repealed Glass-Steagall.  These were reforms created after the Great Depression to keep banks from merging with investment entities and causing another Depression.  (In the 1920s banks had been allowed to do this which led to their investing for themselves and preying on their clients.) So when Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall it happened all over again.  A friend commented to me recently 'Clinton couldn't have foreseen this.'  CLINTON WAS A RHODES SCHOLAR!!!  If I can understand this why couldn't he and Larry Summers et al?  They saw it as at least a possibility.  They may have been naive to think we had modernized to the point where Glass-Steagall was obsolete.  But considering the size of the egos in question, I'd say they were just arrogant and self serving.  And leaving office to someone in the other party, they didn't much care if they left a ticking financial time bomb.  Do I think they expected the economic downturn to be this bad?  No.  But that doesn't change the fact that it was.

Did Bush squander the surplus? Yes.  Should a government run a surplus?  I don't think so, but that's up to you to decide.  A surplus comes from taxes (eg. your money, the money you send them every April--that was two weeks ago.  How happy were you to send that in?  No, really.).

I think the government should take what we NEED and let the people who make the money keep the rest.  That's just me.  It's valid to say if there is a surplus the government should use it to help citizens. But it's just as valuable to say they should give it back.  And think about who THEY are.  Imagine your least favorite sleaze-bag politician.  Now imagine he/she is in your favorite party because he/she IS!  You don't really know your favorite politician in most cases.  Regardless of party, would you hand your newborn to a politician you didn't know personally and say, 'Do with her what you will and have fun!?'  Then why do you trust him/her with anything else?

BTW: How much was the bailout?  We've been told $700-$800 billion.  According to Frontline,  Bloomberg L.P. had to sue to find out the real numbers the Fed loaned or guaranteed to banks.  Any guesses?  It came to $7.77 TRILLION in loans and guarantees.  I was shocked too.

At the moment the financial sector is flourishing.  They were bailed out by us!  But WE on Main Street are stuck in a relentless jobless recession.  Small business which employs half of all US private sector employees (see SBA.gov) has still not recovered, though big business is headed that way.

You have a right to be angry.  Who created TARP?  Bush or Obama?  It was Bush and Obama continued it.  Was it the right thing to do?  I believe it was.  But it was a blank check with no requirements on how it was spent, given to the thieves who caused the problem in the first place.  OF COURSE THEY TOOK THE MONEY AND RAN!  THAT"S WHAT THEY DO!!!  You don't blame a rat for being a rat.  It's in his nature.  You put out traps and if you can find one, hire a mongoose to track him down.

Ok, that being said one thing struck me as vital and at the same time very unlikely.  Two groups emerged from this crisis.  The Tea Partiers and the Occupiers.  Both are vilified by their opponents.  They are divided.  Are they necessary?  I think so.  Both of them.  Two polar ends of the political spectrum who called 'bullshit' on the power brokers in Washington and on Wall Street. (yes both groups have large numbers of useless pricks who make the entire group look bad.)

Here's a BIG WHAT IF:  What if they merged?  Pissed of twenty-somethings and pissed off sixty-somethings from across the nation.  'But those Tea Partiers are a bunch of uneducated red neck bigots trying to take down Obama!'  'No it's those lazy good for nothing dirty wannabe hippy Occupiers who expect redistribution of wealth and a free ride on my hard work!'  Maybe you're both right.  Maybe you're both wrong.  But you both started with the same purpose, fighting the people who live off of your money and keep you out of the payday.  Also the people who consider your vote a coin in their pocket to use for their own purposes.  And now they have you fighting each other on 24 hour cable, while they live happily on your bailouts.

Take your coin back!  Require politicians to come back to you every time they want to borrow it.  Don't just hand it to them for free and let them run off for four years!  Don't give absolute allegiance to EITHER party because what is their incentive to do anything for you?

Our American divide is not so great left and right.  IT IS GREATER UP and DOWN!!!!
We have more in common right and left in America than we do up and down!  That doesn't mean people who earned wealth owe it to anyone.  Let's create a level playing field.

Unite for a common purpose America and you'll win.  Divide because FOX NEWS and MSNBC tell you too and you will undoubtedly lose.  It's your choice.