So one night (daytime there) China’s gov’t puts its banks on notice to immediately suspend any further loans to American institutions. The next morning Paulson & Bernanke are in Washington begging for handouts from a destitute US gov’t for the purpose of buying off toxic financial assets from the banks. Later still no banks are stepping forward to get rid of any such assets, Paulson lines up the top players and forces gov’t money and partial ownership upon them- and now no such toxic assets will be purchased and the money will presumably go to other purposes. So other industries and even municipalities begin to line up at the door with the hand outstretched.

How completely bizarre. And in the midst of it all, though most of the bailout amount is still unused, close to two trillion or something has been monetized, printed from thin air so to speak, by the Fed and distributed. But they adamantly refuse to disclose where its gone- prompting a Bloomberg lawsuit.

What’s even more bizarre is that any American elected official would allow the sun to rise on even one more day of this insanity- except for one thing- that’s how they get their money to fund their schemes as well, the Fed is the goose that keeps plopping golden turds of untaxed revenue (debt) into their laps to fund their ongoing credit card spree.

Early in his tenure as Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan warned the Senate that the charter of the Fed itself should come up for regular reconsideration, that such economic institutions should be examined regularly for a determination as to whether its wise to renew that charter. That has never happened in the nearly hundred-year existence of the Federal Reserve. The doctor warned the patient that they might be suffering from an excess of doctoring, and the patient only bristled at the suggestion of hypochondria. Well, the patient is putting the doctor in that new Mercedes every couple years, so the doctor got busy injecting ever more jazz into the patients bloodstream, at the patients request, and what we have today is a debt addicted society in a world that has reached the limits of its ability and willingness to further extend that credit.

The spree is over, and the housing bubble collapse didn’t cause that, it is rather because of that. Time to set a budget that we can actually more than cover and begin to chip away at that debt.

I’m tired of this game of “blame all around” when we KNOW three things for certain: 1) Certain key Democrats created this problem, 2) Republicans tried to fix it early but Democrats refused, and 3) when it came time to deal with the crisis Democrats created (and some would say the timing was for political purposes), some Republicans made the best of a bad situation and supported what turned out to be a poor alternative, both in principle and practice.

I’m also tired of the magical thinking that says when a Democrat majority does something conservatives don’t like (which is pretty frequent) that we punish the Republican /minority/ for not being conservative enough. It’s like kicking the papaplegic for not winning the jitterbug competition.

In favor of US sovereignty, solvency, and self-determination-
Bachmann
Peterson
Walz

Opposed to the same-
Coleman
Ellison
Kline
Klobuchar
McCollum
Oberstar
Ramstad

Paulson? we’ll see soon enough I suppose.
Pawlenty? No doubt which list he hangs his hat within. He’s come to stink of wall street every bit as much as Coleman.

The future of the party lies in taking care of America’s problems first and foremost, and that means a return to very limited Federal gov’t and fiscal sanity. It means settling up most of the debt over time whether its painful or not. We need to be the party about paying the bills and restoring sound currency. Take care of that and the votes will take care of themselves. Stay lost in virtually meaningless party label loyalties and the GOP on the national level will remain a co-conspirator in the destruction of the USA. Is the present leadership prepared to adopt that course, and do so aggressively and immediately???

No, let any who believe they know better how to accomplish our mutually agreed ends speak up and convince of such, with details. Then, and not before, we can select the best of those willing to serve. In the meantime, the rest of us should do no less. We need all the good ideas we can get, and then a grassroots commitment to those that make the most sense. In other words, we can have a change of direction with or without a change in leadership, and changing leadership might be only a distraction from what WE, as a party, should be doing. Figure that out first, and we’ll go from there.

Andy’s right on this one- it would be an extremely refreshing change from the present direction.

If he says the current leadership is the problem, then the current leadership is the problem. Please don’t question The Andy, it’s just not healthy for the party.

Thanks!

We’re at a turning point here, my friend. It’s time to toss out the deadwood and polish the brass. People like Mark Olson are the antithesis of what I hope to see the GOP become in the future.

I’m sick and tired of having to listen to some stinking Democrat point their fingers at some elected GOP politician and find myself unable to respond.

And I know I’m not alone.