FFS Hillary, just bring back the $3 a day wage, pay docking, no overtime pay, 90 hour workweek

[JDPriestly]

58. Lots of points. I won't address them all.

I agree. We should not have been involved in Honduras. But our involvement in Central America goes back to the Eisenhower era when we intervened on behalf of United Fruit in Guatemala. We haven't freed ourselves from that karma (if you want to call it that) yet.

Syria is a mess. More honesty from our government about just what we have done would be necessary before I could say anything definite. I have suspicions about what our role has been, but that is all they are. So I won't address that other than to say that we should be careful about getting involved in situations we don't really understand because just when we think things can't get worse than Assad, we get ISIS. And some of our "friends" may be supporting ISIS, so we have to be very careful about which "friends" we help out.

The Constitution gives to Congress the authority to print and value our coins or currency. What our banking institutions if any, should be was a subject of controversy beginning in the earliest history of our country. Adams, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and Washington kind of left the decision on the role of banks in our country to the future and to us. It was never really clear what way we should go. But if our government is of the people, by the people and for the people, it needs to play a major role in managing our economy.

For a long time, American banks have not acted in the interest of the American economy or people. As I often say, it is simply wrong that some ordinary person with very little education gets hauled off to court and maybe alternative sentencing or worse, prison, for fraud or forgery or shoplifting or petty theft while huge mortgage companies and banks operate a scheme of forging signatures on foreclosure documents and failing to comply with state laws about recording deeds and mortgages without a day in jail as well as all kinds of other misrepresentations and go scot frree. Something very, very, very wrong there. It's called corruption.

Every administration in recent years has taken campaign money from the banks and mortgage companies and the rest of the financial sector and closed its eyes to the malfeasance and crime perpetrated in that sector -- or most of that crime. That is simply wrong. (Do shoplifters and petty thieves need trade organizations and lobbyists? I hope you know I am joking. I am not trying to justify theft even if petty.)

And to nominate yet another mollycoddler of the banking and financial industry, yet another president who will fail to appoint a strong attorney general and other heads of agencies willing to regulate our financial sector is going to end badly -- could even end our country or at least impoverish it. On this basis alone, I oppose Hillary Clinton.

We need a president who will appoint people who will not necessarily be vindictive toward wealth but who will impose a sense of responsibility toward something other than just making themselves wealthy on our financial sector. All institutions and individuals who sell financial instruments of any kind to other people as a profession or on a wide basis should have a fiduciary duty and a duty of loyalty to the person they sell to and advise. They should have an obligation to be honest about what they think of the instruments they are selling. This is especially true of anyone selling instruments to a pension fund or a 401(K) fund.

In terms of trade pacts, our negative balance of payments is a heavy weight hanging over our heads. On the one hand, the fact that we can maintain such a negative balance says that our currency is respected and desired. On the other, the fact that we maintain such a negative balance says that our products are not respected or desired. In our effort to avoid becoming Communist and over rigid, we have become disorganized. Hey. Disorganization can result in a lot of creativity. Freedom is wonderful. But everything in moderation.

The economies in countries that export a lot like Germany are those in which there is a little more working together to set goals and more conscious direction at the government level than ours. The economies that are exporting like Germany or Sweden do not treat working people like dirt. They have the goal of producing products they can sell to others and don't just leave it up to good luck. Their export policy reaches into their social system -- their unemployment insurance, their financing of education, and their workplaces. Also they don't make it easy or desirable for companies to leverage buy-outs of the industry of their countries and just sell industries or major companies to other countries. (Our Maytag washers were fantastic when they were produced in Newton, Iowa. I bought mine used in 1985 and still have it. But where are Maytags produced now. I doubt that any Maytag bought today will be of the quality that mine is. Germany does well because its products are well made and reliable.)

"Free" trade has imposed a heavy debt burden, low wages and lower tax revenue from business profits in the US. All said and done, Americans have lost in the free trade game. A few very wealthy people have made out like bandits. That makes our economic statistics look like Americans are doing much better than we are. The reality is not good for most Americans. Walmart which specializes in selling imported junk to poor Americans is doing well. That is not a sign of prosperity. It is a sign of the economic desperation and paltry shopping choices that most Americans face.

I live in Southern California. I am very concerned about water. (We are due, finally, to get some rain this week.) Fracking is, as I understand it, not good for our water. I would like some transparency and better science on fracking. Same for GMOs. I like to garden, so I am concerned about the use of pesticides. We don't know what the long-range effects of pesticide use, much less GMOs, will be on our health. We may be playing with fire. What we need is good, independent science when it comes to thinks like fracking, GMOs, other chemicals and technologies. We don't get the independence in our science that we need. I don't know how we could, but we need to see whether there is a way. When I think about the mistakes our country made with regard to for example tobacco and asbestos, I think this is an area in which we need to find new ways to deal with the scientific review.

I don't think that Hillary Clinton is the person to lead the country in dealing with these problems. I think that she carries a lot of baggage. I was trained as a singer. I can hear emotion in voices maybe better than a lot of people. Her voice sounds bitter, sometimes arrogant. Her "laugh" or snicker will be a bigger problem than Dean's scream if I am not mistaken. I think she can be very sweet and fun, but that she also has a lot of pent-up anger in her. I think she really cares about women and children and, as a woman, I would like to see us have a woman for president for once. But I think that Hillary has too much going against her. She has too many personal and campaign finance ties to the financial sector. She is hated by many on the right and for no good reason. But if you think Obama has a hard time with the righties' completely unfair criticism of him, it will be much worse for Hillary Clinton. And then, I don't think she will support good policies in many of the areas I discussed above.

I have been reading about Teddy Roosevelt recently. He was a man born into wealth, but also with an extraordinarily optimistic, ebullient, energetic soul. I would like to see us have a real fighter for, as Teddy Roosevelt might say it, "virtue" in the White House. In some areas, Hillary Clinton could be that. But she is not the optimist and fighter that we need now. I think that Elizabeth Warren would be that optimistic fighter who just never gives up. Teddy Roosevelt had asthma as a child. It was quite serious. Yet he forced himself to work out, climb mountains and explore the wilderness. He was not a complainer. We need a president with that energy. I am not claiming to agree with all of Teddy Roosevelt's views on issues. But we need a president who speaks strongly and courageously for the people and is not intimidated or controlled by wealth. I do not think that Hillary Clinton is that person. Certainly not a one of the Republican potential candidates is at all qualified. I like Elizabeth Warren. I think Bernie Sanders also has the character to ignore the personal criticism and represent and fight for ordinary people. If we don't get a president who will energetically fight for ordinary people, I do not think our country will do at all well in the future. I know that Hillary Clinton would like to be that kind of a president, but I really don't think she can. She owes too many political debts to those who are bringing our country down.

Sorry for the long, long rant. But you raised a lot of important issues. Thanks.