In the well of understanding

In the well of understanding

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Silence is broken: Hope you did not hope too hard



At the behest of a friend (yes, Judi, you) I have been biding my time (and tongue). I was asked to give our new President and his claque a reasonable amount of space to begin implementing his policies before commenting; in this friend's opinion my style and manner may sometimes come across as ad hominem but then we all know the quip about opinions and, er, fundaments{smile}.

Naturally, this means that I have a backlog of thought and feeling which now seeks expression, craves release in a written medium. I have recovered from my brief stint, the warm escape and balm, in Brazil and once more am ensconced in the native soil of mundane existence. My country is troubled on various fronts, chief among them the crisis and insolvency of leadership which has resulted in the crise économique. For the average citizen concerns have shifted from expansive ideals of where to vacation and what to buy to preserving the sanctity of hearth and home, wresting what they may from the ravenous jaws of disregard and greed.

Our federal government - first last fall under the auspices of erstwhile President Bush and now secure in the aegis of President Obama - has followed an abortive scheme of continuing to bailout fruitless financial institutions with the vaunted hope that these firms will extend lending to citizens and prop up the rapidly failing burg of the economy. Instead, this has had the opposite effect of insulating a particular class from economic ruin, essentially creating an aristocracy not allowed to feel the chill winds of national calamity while the garden-variety denizen languishes in hopeless despair.

If the government's goal was to give succour to Citizens Joe and Jill, then why provide monetary security to reckless banks without any oversight, consequences or clear direction? It would have been far more advantageous to let those firms meet their demise, and use the taxpayers' dollars to create a national bank where there was direct control and supervision. If I were to posit to conservatives the notion of an extremely risky investment where your returns are uncertain and your input was nil, very few would leap at this as a golden opportunity. Yet some of the most conservative legislators were the loudest voices in support of this boondoggle. (Not that the Left was much better, as they were thronging about in hero-worship for their new Demiurge). So much for change, Mr President; your ringtone is stuck on the unrestrained melody of status quo.