Don't Get Discouraged

Rants, "Taken Private"

You may have (not) noted that I have been quiet. Not a rant in weeks. Well, busy-bee me has been ranting to friends and relatives instead of to the blog-o-swear.

So here are a few excerpts from said rants.


A friend said: "Obama's socialist" I said: There you go again. Socialism is when the government owns the companies. "...Economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." Or, worse, "...state control of capital within the framework of a market economy..." kind of like helping Bear Sterns, Fannie/Freddie and now Lehman Brothers. Who's the socialist here, anyway?]

A friend sent me an editorial from Independent Business Daily, blasting Obama's positions. I said: America is in serious trouble. If we are to remain the beacon of freedom, the leader of the free world, the font of innovation, the hope of humanity ... all that we really believe in, we can not - like IBD does every day - just look out for the interest of the super rich. This tract is not just an "anti-Obama rant," it's a reactionary call for a continuation of the catastrophic governing of GWB... heck, to go back to the days of the Robber Barons. That's IBD for you.

A friend said: "As for America being in "serious trouble" -- we have challenges that need to be confronted (always have)." Like the current collapse of international competitiveness from Big Dog to Slipping Fast? Like "best public schools in the world" to 37th? Like fox-in-the-henhouse regulators (See Interior Dept, FDA, Consumer Safety, et al)? Like collapsing infrastructure? Stretched-to-the-point-of-impotence military? Falling behind in science? Financial collapse with a real chance of becoming either Great Depression II or Japanese style stagflation? Biz in trouble? Politics that sound more like propaganda? Somehow this seems like a bit more than our regular challenges.

So there you are... I shouldn't rant totally in private. It's just not neighborly.

Two column recommendations: "Blizzard of Lies" by Paul Krugman, and "In the Seventh Year" by Roger Cohen.

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