As an independent, I’ve spent the months following the election on the sidelines and in a bubble. Quite frankly, I cannot bear to watch the “news” because of the fighting between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans and Republicans, and Democrats and Democrats. I don’t need to be clued in to every word; the small snippets I get here and there are more than enough. Small, insignificant moments are blown up into distorted monstrous problems. Why? The country slides into increased fear and a paralyzing slowdown of the economy. I have to think that some of these misplaced fights are put in place for a reason.
The fighting and name-calling takes energy away from more constructive pursuits, such as fixing what is broken. Every minute spent on slinging mud takes precious time away from solving the problem.
As an independent, I don’t mind who is in charge, as long as they do the right thing. In the last six months, my opinion of our elected officials and career politicians has soured me on the system. Our leaders are no longer leading; they plunder public coffers for their own benefit. They line their pockets with frills and perks instead of evening the playing field for the people they have been entrusted to care for. They conveniently forgo paying taxes and are given a pass, when the common Joe would have had his house and child’s bank account seized by the IRS. They no longer listen to their constituents, instead relying on lobbyists to prop up their agenda. Or maybe it’s the other way around – the leaders are propping up the lobbyist agenda. Many have taken up celebrity as a cause du jour. Celebrity is fine for Hollywood types or sports players, but it has no place in true leadership.
Perhaps I have an out-of-date notion of what a leader should be and do. For one thing, leaders should possess a few basic values; a moral and ethical character, a fair amount of humility, a workable plan of action and the ability to lead by example. Good leaders are principled, but fair.
From the city offices, to the state and federal government, I see a landscape curiously devoid of true leaders. Instead of sensible and well thought out leadership, we have a motley crew of personalities vying for TV coverage. Instead of embracing strong direction and the ability to curtail bad behavior, our leaders have decided to maintain the status quo and throw nonexistent money on the conflagration. They have forgotten the principle of the common good and instead see only themselves in the equation.
All of this didn’t happen overnight; it has been brewing for some time. America happens to be in the middle of a perfect storm, one that will likely destroy her.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Ruvy
Wow, Joanne!
Finally a realist writing real words who sees what is around her! And who actually gives a damn!
Bravo! Bravissimo!
Would there but more like you out there, Joanne. Your nation would sail out of disaster with no scars at all....
My kid asked me to bookmark what you have written. The poor kids are stuck listening to what I write when I write articles, but my son wants to read what you have written.
That is high praise.
2 - roger nowosielski
That is a more accurate assessment of our situation than most. Have we grown too big for our breeches, perhaps, regardless of the crisis we're facing?
This proliferation of laws and regulations - to the point that's impossible to read them - is anathema. Or perhaps it's the only way the legislators (those whom we elect) can justify holding office.
I have a suggestion to make. Perhaps we ought to make it a requirement that no one with a law degree would be qualified to run. I'm aware I'm going incur some wrath here by even making this proposal. But all lawyers are a scourge. Didn't Shakespeare say so:
"All:
God save your majesty!
Cade:
I thank you, good peopleâ€"there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do."
Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71â€"78
3 - Joanne Huspek
Thanks, Ruvy, Roger. I may give a damn, but I don't know what good it's going to do.
4 - handyguy
You don't say explicitly, but you do imply, that you include the president among the "total lack of leadership." Whether you agree with his policies and proposals or not, they haven't been timid, and they haven't lacked a rationale or a point of view. I think he's proving to be a good, often exemplary leader.
Of course, there will always be people who resist government initiatives on general principle. I would describe this resistance as ideological tunnel vision. You call yourself an independent, but very few of your articles or comments on this site could be described as anything other than right-wing conservative/libertarian.
And I think the constant moaning about "handouts" is short-sighted and also short on thinking. Surely you don't think Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke [lifelong Republicans whose first instincts in 2007 and early 2008 were to leave the market alone] enjoyed giving money to banks, did it for fun? They, as well as Obama, Geithner and Summers recognize the danger of a paralyzed banking/credit system.
You can question their methods [but if so, you ought to suggest alternatives]; but you can't question their motives. Nonetheless, some have: these guys are just helping out their old pals on Wall St. This is an intellectually lazy, morally misguided, utterly wrong response to government policies. It's a populist caricature, and it is a lie.
It's also cynical to refer to the president's mortgage assistance plan as a "handout." It's an attempt to raise the sinking housing market. Foreclosed homes bring down the value of a neighborhood.
Some of these comments go beyond what Joanne actually writes in the article. But it really steams me for the administration's policies to be caricatured as handouts and welfare, when they obviously are not intended as such.
5 - roger nowosielski
"And I think the constant moaning about "handouts" is short-sighted."
I happen to agree here, Handy, especially the analogy that's being used: comparing a household budget (and ways of dealing with it) to the initiatives. It remains to be shown that the analogy is applicable.
6 - Clavos
Whether you agree with his [Obama's] policies and proposals or not, they haven't been timid, and they haven't lacked a rationale or a point of view. I think he's proving to be a good, often exemplary leader. (Emphasis added)
Hmm.
In the first 50+ days, Bam:
Signs a $400+ million spending bill containing nearly 9,000 earmarks, then gives a speech in which he pledges to reform earmarks.
Pledges to: 1. reform health care by having the government handle it and pay for it and, 2. reform education by expanding the government's role in it; -- then he tells a group of businessmen, "I don't like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested in expanding government's role."
Even one of his strongest (and most credible) supporters, Warren Buffet, has criticized Bam's handling of the economy, calling it "muddled."
And muddled it is, to the extent that our biggest creditor, China, has expressed uncertainty about America's economic viability in the years to come.
Not only is his choice of Treasury Secretary so bewildering that he (Geithner) has become the butt of jokes on Saturday Night Live, but no fewer than four of his appointees for top Treasury jobs have withdrawn.
And Geithner, as Treasury Secretary, is supposed to be implementing and managing the Administration's recovery plans?
Whew.
7 - handyguy
Clavos, you no longer even bother to pretend to have an open mind, if in fact you ever did. If the Obama administration proposes or does something, you reflexively oppose it. Period. Then you rationalize your knee-jerk responses afterward.
You've become nothing but a nay-sayer, who can't be bothered to actually analyze something in its entirety and admit that there are good and bad aspects to nearly all proposals, whether from the left or the right.
Obama's earmarks speech was a lot more nuanced than your cartoon summary of it. He said he was reluctantly signing a flawed bill because continuing to argue over less than 2% of it was not constructive with so many other issues on the table. And he was absolutely right.
He then laid out guidelines for reducing, not eliminating, earmarks in future bills. And no president could end by fiat the long-established practice of earmarking spending bills. It's a false issue anyway. Just because something is earmarked doesn't automatically make it a bad idea. That substitutes sneering for thinking.
The president's rationale for health care is that we must spend money now to save it later. The current system is flawed and wasteful. Setting up a new system is not free, but if done properly it will be worth it.
I actually thought you supported health care reform, even possibly a single payer model. I guess that viewpoint is no longer gadflyish enough for you - you might actually have to agree with Obama on something, heaven forfend!
The problem with Tim Geithner is that he is a brilliant policy wonk but a not-so-hot speechmaker. This leaves him open to satire, but it need not foretell failure, if his policies really do turn out to be brilliant. [Takes longer than a few weeks for that to be proven.]
It's easy to throw brickbats. A little harder to say, these plans are well intentioned but flawed, and here are my suggestions to fix them.
Your almost total negativism is becoming a real bore.
8 - Clavos
Heaven forfend I should bore you, handyguy.
I don't intend to stop posting, so perhaps you should skip over my boring scribbling, henceforth.
9 - handyguy
I wasn't suggesting that you [or anyone else] should stop posting.
But a little less vicious cynicism and a little more actual reasoning might further your arguments better.
I was merely pointing out that your crabby unpleasantness had become a bad and self-defeating habit.
10 - roger nowosielski
Handy,
You're not going to make a dent with some people, hard as you try. I would take the advice, though. Save your energies.
11 - handyguy
Clavos and I used to get along OK, agreeing on social issues fairly frequently.
Last year's election, which began with him finding Obama intriguing and ended with his nonstop Obama-bashing [and, eek, Palin-praising], found us more often at odds.
The bashing has continued this year. I find some of it utterly unfair and deeply offensive and it's impossible not to respond.
12 - roger nowosielski
Handy,
I said it once to Glenn and I'm going to say it to you: you can't convince anyone with facts and/or logical arguments if you're not on the same page insofar as sentiment is concerned. Glenn agreed but he still seems unable to internalize this basic precept.
It's bad enough we can't even reach sufficient agreement with people who more or less share the same heart. But to try to do that with others it's like beating your head against the wall. It's almost impossible to breech this kind of divide.
So anyways, that's my two cents on the subject.
13 - roger nowosielski
"breech" - should be "bridge" Sorry
14 - handyguy
Well, sure, I'm not going to change his mind, nor he mine. That doesn't mean we should ignore each other's posts. The interplay could be educational, or at least entertaining, for others.
15 - roger nowosielski
Isn't a pity that minds are so fixed? But it's not a matter of changing someone's mind so much as reaching a common ground to the extent possible. But with some you won't even get there.
16 - Joanne Huspek
It's extremely frustrating to have thoughts and to put them in a forum. Someone is always going to downplay your ideas. I don't mind that, it's just that I'm happy to be able to have my thoughts and to articulate them the best I can (which might not be the best and brightest way, since I'm not even a college graduate). I am more concerned about those who don't ponder the issues at all, the sheep or the lemmings. I fear they're going to outnumber those of us with a brain.
The finger pointing continues, and it's wasted energy.
I have no answers, but I would bet my year's salary that none of those people in government know what's going on either. It appears that the world has gone with the tactic of throwing anything out there (quickly) and if it sticks, so be it.
I do not believe in bailouts, but in the natural order of things. And I live in SE Michigan, an area that is heavily relying on bailout money. What we have going on is reverse Darwinism. It's the survival of the unfittest.
17 - Clavos
handy,
I'm not simply "bashing." And I'm not alone.
How much has the Market dropped since the new admin. started announcing its plans? Particularly painful to me, because I have lost about 39% (so far) of my life's savings since the decline started, and with each new announcement by Geithner or his boss we have yet another steep decline. (Yes, I know the last four days showed some gains; we'll see if they're durable or not)
I genuinely believe the Stimulus and spending plans are seriously flawed, and apparently, so do millions of investors.
I'm really glad I have no mortgage or other debt, and have always paid cash for my cars; glad too, that I have good pensions from the two airlines for which I worked thirty years, but I'm convinced (and very worried) that we are in for a round of inflation in the next 12-24 months, the likes of which hasn't been seen since pre-war Germany, and which will be followed by yet another recession.
The numbers being presented by the WH don't add up.
18 - Ruvy
Thanks, Ruvy, Roger. I may give a damn, but I don't know what good it's going to do.
Joanne,
The easiest thing to do in a crisis situation that America (and by extension, all of its dependencies and creditors) faces is to batten down the hatches with an "I'm alright, Jack, fuck you", attitude.
You haven't done that, at least from I can see in this article and your comments elsewhere. That speaks highly of you and your character. Certainly you display higher midĂłt (laudable character traits) than I do at times. Businesspeople with a real sense of pride tend to look at bailouts and similar type handouts with a certain disdain - and, being a businesswoman, you fit that bill. That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with you on everything you say, but there is that saying about walking a mile in another (wo)man's shoes, isn't there?
I was riding home from patrol on the bus this evening with this Russian fellow I know who lives in a neighboring village, and he usually asks me what is going on in the world. A journalist wrote a piece on me in a Russian newspaper in Israel and because of that piece this fellow in the neighboring village respects my views.
It was this that I told him on the bus on the way to his home in 'ElĂ: America's government has exhibited little common sense and responsibility and does not listen to the people. You don’t have to have a master’s degree in economics to know that you can’t spend money you don’t have.
Sound familiar? It's the bottom line when looking at America's economic crisis. You can't spend the money you don't have.
What you have done is told the simple truth, Joanne. Do you know that Socrates was killed by the Athenian elite for doing that; that Galileo was blinded by the Catholic church for doing that?
What you have done is what a real heroine does - tell the simple unvarnished truth. Some folks (I won't name names here) can't deal with the simple truth when it smacks them in the head with a two-by-four.
19 - Clavos
You can't spend the money you don't have.
Quoted for Truth.
20 - handyguy
I agree that the last four days of the market going up are not a valid way to measure this administration. But then neither is the movement of the markets since Jan. 20, and neither is any stock market movement during any presidential administration, taken in isolation.
You lost most of your paper wealth during the last administration, I believe. And before that, you gained much of your paper wealth during the same administration, from markets puffed up by ... thin air, as it turns out. Not real value. It's not necessarily either president's fault the market experienced a bubble that burst.
And there is always the possibility that without TARP, without the stimulus, without the additional bank rescue, without the mortgage assistance, things would be even worse. That's impossible to prove or disprove.
My objection is that people react to these things in a narrow, ideological way. You peg the president and his policies as 'leftist' [I think that is dubious, but set that aside for a second], so it can't possibly work, because your ideology tells you so.
None of us has ever experienced a situation like this. To declare so definitively that you know what will and won't work, and that Bernanke, Summers and Geithner therefore must have their collective heads up their collective asses, is not convincing on an intellectual or a political level.
It's just you, as a conservative, having an allergic reaction to a non-conservative solution. Conservatives had the same reaction to FDR's policies, even to the point of insisting now, with straight faces, that they didn't work. They couldn't possibly work, right? Because only conservative policies work. Liberal policies always suck. And this passes for thinking in some circles.
But conservatives had their shot. You say they blew it, that Bush wasn't a 'real' conservative? Tough. Too bad. Our turn now.
Make all the noise you want, wailing about a 'preordained' conclusion, but in the end you're just going to have to wait and see how this policy works out. Maybe you'll be happily surprised.
Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner aren't just anonymous amateurs. They do have an enormous amount of intelligence and experience. And tell us, what gives you your expertise?
21 - handyguy
Joanne, maybe if you attached your generalities to some specifics, and suggested alternatives, you could flesh out your argument. A generic objection to bailouts and handouts is not a very complete or satisfying way to talk about the current situation.
For example, to take a name from today's news, the government now owns about 80% of AIG - so strictly speaking it was not a handout. There are still many profitable businesses within AIG, and when the messed-up businesses that were based on mortgage-backed securities are wound down, the government stands to make some money from the good parts of the business, through profits or through selling pieces off.
The same thing applies to Citibank. So these are not simply handouts or bailouts, and the government money is not simply lost forever.
The policies and plans may or may not work. But oversimplifying the situation doesn't really get us anywhere either, except possibly to vent some populist anger and frustration.
22 - roger nowosielski
You might find this of interest, Handy:
Outrage over AIG bonuses.
There is some argument, therefore, to the effect that the feds don't have total/sufficient control.
23 - Clavos
There is some argument, therefore, to the effect that the feds don't have total/sufficient control.
It's more than an argument, Roger, it's the reality.
The government is accepting preferred (i.e. non-voting) shares in these companies, thereby ensuring they have NO say in how the companies are subsequently operated. This was done as a "deal" with the companies that are being "bailed out."
24 - roger nowosielski
That's would make Handy's argument in this respect somewhat invalid.
25 - handyguy
Yes, the bonuses story was on the front page of the NY Times this morning. That's the reason I said "to take a name from today's news."
It doesn't prove a lot about the larger business, but I can understand why it makes people mad. The bonuses are based on contracts that predate the bailout, and lawyers seem to have convinced the administration that negating the contracts is not a good idea.
It would be fine with me if they find a way around this, but it's not a large amount of money compared to the size of the AIG bailout.
And even though the government owns 80% of AIG, that doesn't mean they will make any money from the business. But the profits of the healthy parts could offset the ruined parts...eventually.