Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts

Friday, September 12, 2008

Lingering Ruminations on the RNC (ugh)

You know what really amazed me about the RNC?

The fact that each of the speakers at the RNC, Thompson, Leiberman, McCain and Palin (et al.) went on and on about the problems of America but never, ever mentioned the Bush administration or any of the principals who have master-minded the mess we’re in. Of course, they want to distance themselves from Bush/Cheney and company – Bush delivered his speech from the White House; Cheney was in the Caucasus shilling for Big Oil – that’s easy to figure.

The amazing thing is the deceitful, callous panache, if you will, that was displayed by those hard-working spin-meisters who crafted the speeches at the RNC. Any writer will tell you that would be incredibly difficult to be able to bring up the Iraq debacle, the faltering economy, record home foreclosures, rising unemployment, the power of lobbyists, and so on, pushing all of the right ‘hot buttons’ for voters without ever mentioning or alluding to the fact that all of these problems lay directly at the door of the Bush administrations and the GOP.

Granted that the Dems – inept, complacent bunch of craven goldbricks that they are, with few exceptions – have done next to nothing since gaining control of Congress but rubber stamp the decrees from the Imperial Palace at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the big problems were well out of the gate by then.

And then to top it all off with calling McCain/Palin a pair of Mavericks and a ticket for Change! Wow! Mavericks that run with the herd and change that won’t actually change anything. Amazing chutzpa!

Of course, it could be called worse things.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Debt - the American Way

It never rains but it pours.

Credit card debt in America reached a record high of nearly $800 billion dollars last November. A new report from the Center for American Progress warns that a rise in credit card defaults could produce economic fallout on par with the current mortgage crisis. Approximately 35 million credit card customers can no longer afford to make more than the minimum payment every month.

Meanwhile defaults on home mortgages have reached another all-time high. The Mortgage Bankers Association say nearly 80% of all home loans in America were past due or in foreclosure at the end of last year. The Federal Reserve also announced that Americans’ percentage of equity in their homes has fallen below fifty percent for the first time since 1945.

But that’s not all!

The price of oil hit a new high Thursday nearly reaching $106 a barrel, a 300% increase over 7 years ago, at the start of Bush’s neo-con regime.

And that’s only part of it. The record oil price came as the US dollar struck a new low against all major currencies.

The Bush administration pats itself on the back for sending out checks for a few hundred dollars to each American family to off-set the collapse of the dollar.

What a bunch of great guys.

On the other hand, the US government gives out more than $5 billion a year in direct aid to Israel. Has done for more than a generation.

$13,812,154 a day.

That works out to more than $10,000 per Israeli per annum.

You got bought off cheap, sucka.

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville

Oh, by the way, Dubya probably had to borrow the money he deigned to dole out to you. So, as US taxpayers, you’ll be expected to pay all of it back.

With interest. Just hope Dubya didn’t put it on his credit card.

http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/table.html

http://www.americanprogress.org/

http://www.mortgagebankers.org/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/7/headlines