The Onion reports that George W. Bush has been having a chuckle or two thinking that he was President for eight years:
Witnesses said the former president's chuckling grew even stronger as it dawned on him that, for eight straight years beginning in January 2001, he had the power to nominate executive and judicial officers to the federal government, as well as grant unlimited presidential pardons and reprieves if he so desired.
In her review of Michael Moore new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story," Arianna Huffington had this to say about the current state of economic affairs:
In the film, Michael describes capitalism as evil. I disagree. I don't think capitalism is evil. I think what we have right now is not capitalism.
In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn't get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It's welfare for the rich. It's the government picking winners and losers. It's Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It's socialized losses and privatized gains.
According to Thomas Friedman's recent op-ed in the NYT, given that oil prices are way down compared to last year, it's time for a gas tax, but we don't have the guts. We don't have the guts to make hard decisions like France and Denmark, which have both dramatically reduced their dependency on petroleum. Further, a gas tax would also generate much-needed revenue.
Such a tax would make our economy healthier by reducing the deficit, by stimulating the renewable energy industry, by strengthening the dollar through shrinking oil imports and by helping to shift the burden of health care away from business to government so our companies can compete better globally. Such a tax would make our population healthier by expanding health care and reducing emissions. Such a tax would make our national-security healthier by shrinking our dependence on oil from countries that have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs and by increasing our leverage over petro-dictators, like those in Iran, Russia and Venezuela, through shrinking their oil incomes.
In the NYT, Paul Krugman notes that the banks are increasingly engaging in the same risky short-term profiteering that let to the economic meltdown:
In the grim period that followed Lehman’s failure, it seemed inconceivable that bankers would, just a few months later, be going right back to the practices that brought the world’s financial system to the edge of collapse. At the very least, one might have thought, they would show some restraint for fear of creating a public backlash. But now that we’ve stepped back a few paces from the brink — thanks, let’s not forget, to immense, taxpayer-financed rescue packages — the financial sector is rapidly returning to business as usual. Krugman further notes that Obama hasn't yet shown the courage to directly confront the bankers, a move that, according to Krugman, could be politically popular.
While flying from Columbus Ohio to St. Louis today, I stopped over in cloudy/misty Chicago. Here's how downtown looked from above the airport.
