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What happened here? We were supposed to be the most admired nation of the planet. For decades our government touted our successes around the globe with the confidence that our system should be emulated by everyone. Now, that arrogant pulpit has a mud all over it. The nations we’ve scorned over the years would be bathing in their own delight if it weren’t for the fact we’ve spread our gloom across all currencies and borders. The most tragic part of this chapter is it stems from the most primal of all the world’s sins: greed. You’d think this was a difficult new concept to absorb…but humans are inherently rotten. Our government became the puppets of cannibal-capitalism gone awry…and the “Wild Wild West” days of debt trading have done themselves in. What a fitting way to send off the Bush administration in its final days.

Back in high school I had a Social Studies teacher who claimed the pages of history had shown us the odds were pretty good that America would evolve into a more socialist type of government. Well, here we are…holding onto a freight train going over a cliff. The super wealthy blame everybody else…and we’ve not seen one person or company being held accountable (a few brow beatings at best), if nothing else to at least reassure us that justice is still alive and well. But with so much deregulation, what laws are they going to charge people with breaking? Other than of course telling investors the house is sound when termites are feeding on the foundation.

All this vaguely reminds me of General Motors and the EV1…they were basically ahead of their time on this one, and they’d be way out ahead of their competitors by now…but their lusting over SUV profits & the bantering of their buddies in Big Oil crushed that project. Now, GM is fighting for its survival for just long enough to get their next electric vehicle into the showrooms. Hopefully by then people can actually get the credit they need to buy one.

The Patriot Act and the array of big bailouts of Wall Street’s fat pigs has slid a monstrous socialist movement in under our feet…not as we slept oblivious to current events, but while we all watched in horror and dismay.

During the first presidential election night when G.W.B. won, one of my coworkers at the time ranted on and on about how if G.W.B. didn’t win there would be a surge in capital gains taxes and more. Well Allison, your boy won, twice, and how does that capital gains tax argument fair now? I’d bet every wealthy body, 401K, hedge fund, CDS jockey, General Electric executive, Wall Street trader, mortgage holder, Countrywide mortgage broker, pension fund, AIG investor, Lehman Brothers employee, and the rest of the world would gladly trade a bit of taxation & regulation over the Katrina-type chaos financials are in now. Debt overflowed the dyke, and a proud system is in ruins…some bodies won’t be found for months. How ironic.