Robert Reich on today's SC decision...

[jtuck004]

17. Certainly. But that means HUGE investment, something I would bet this

county is too short-sighted to do like it did a hundred years ago. We are in such a deep fucking hole that we are paying out over a $trillion a year to banks just to try and keep the housing market from tanking. There are still likely trillions in phonied up money hidden by the actions of the federal reserve and banks, we have perhaps 10-15 million perfectly able yet permanently unemployed people who should be working and never will, and perhaps 100 million with jobs that cannot sustain any kind of normal life, with no hope of that ever changing. There are 9 million home loans on homes that are no longer worth what they loans are written for. And this administration will end with more people consigned to being working poor than any presidency in decades.

Assuming everything got change to perfect today, there is such serious, long-term systemic damage it would still take at least a decade, probably two, to even begin to make a noticeable dent in those numbers, unless one's standards and hopes have been beaten so low now that even 2 or 3 would seem like a fucking miracle, or unless they are one of the marketing or cheerleader types. They always seem to get a thrill no matter what.

The biggest challenge is that Americans have been taught by the last 4 generations of politicians that there is no good in the long term and that profits are more important than people. And with a whole country acting like that, like they do today, you might as well try pissing up a rope in a windstorm, because the more you try invest in the sizable numbers that will be needed, the more resistance you are likely to face from the very people who you "think" you are helping.

Remember Normandy? Thousands of men poured off boats knowing for a FACT they were about to die, and did so perhaps because they thought death was a better alternative than slavery. They KNEW the benefit was going to accrue, not to them, but to someone else, the ultimate sacrifice. That's what it takes to win any war.

We are at war with these bastards, but this side, the one with 300+ million people, is not only NOT storming the beach, we are watching cable. We show no sign of getting up, either, as long as we can have it.

And until we address that particular deficit it won't matter who is voted into where, we will at best just delay the end for a while longer.