Recently in National Debt Category

For years, I have advocated for independent voters to unite around the ant-incumbent strategy. Pres. Obama won as the challenger to the Bush/Republican years, riding the wave of disapproving independent voters. He won with 53% of the vote, and his approval rating remains in that ball park, depending on what poll you look at. The off-year gubernatorial races in 2009 were dominated by anti-incumbent independent voters. And now, in an historically Democratic State, Democrats lost and a Republican shall take the late Ted Kennedy's seat. Are the Parties acknowledging this wake up call?

Deficit spending by the federal government, (spending beyond the budget year's revenues), has at various times in our history been essential and necessary. Necessity has been defined as insuring the integrity of the nation, as in World War 2, or, insuring humane conditions for the American people, as in the Great Depression or Dust Bowl era. Defining essential and necessary deficit spending is not difficult. Defining non-essential and unnecessary spending is a highly improbable endeavor for our American system of government. Therein lies the economic threat going forward. A potential solution sits idly in Congress.

A number of folks are trying to affix responsibility for this recession and financial crisis on home buying borrowers. That is illogical, and here is why.

First, for as long as there has been credit, a couple thousand years at least, it has been the lender who bore the responsibility for the quality of the loans they chose to issue. It is the lenders with the experience and mathematical expertise to assess the credit worthiness of potential borrowers. Not the sharecropper, cobbler, or Indian Chief. In a society which functions along lines of specialization of labor, it is the creditors specialized in assessing risk, not their potential borrowers.

As always, elections are about variables so myriad as to make polling effective only in trend for some elections, and entirely unreliable in others. It appears to me this 2008 election however, is about a crisis in confidence toward authority and the presidential winner will be the person having shown the most credible judgement.

Most American tax payers could not give a definition of the term "opportunity cost". Just as most Americans could not tell you what al-Queda was, prior to 9/11, 2001. Not knowing however, did not stop al-Queda from attacking America, and not knowing what opportunity cost is, will not stop those oppressive and suffocating costs from forcing future tax increases on income earners in America and pushing the nation toward bankruptcy.

America has a future. American's have a future. In many ways, it will not look like our past. What is happening right now is a revolution, a political, economic, and cultural revolution. There is no choice about it. When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, certain concepts and ideas were put to the test, and in 2007 and 2008, those concepts and ideas brought our economy crashing down, driving 10's of millions of voters to leave the two major political parties, and opening the door to dramatic cultural change going forward.

Yesterday, the word was an agreement framework was at hand. What transpired after that is anyone's guess, and I will offer some in a moment.

But, the facts are these: A group of House Republicans have opposed this Republican proposal from the outset when Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced it days ago. One hour after McCain's arrival in D.C. yesterday, bi-partisan statements were made to the media that a basic agreement was at hand. Today,that sentiment was reiterated in a bipartisan statement this morning. Then, Sen. McCain met with balking Republicans in the House and became their spokesperson in the White House meeting which ended just 30 minutes ago. Now there is no agreement, Sen. Shelby and another spokesperson at the White House announced.

There is nothing as depressing as to be right about calamity foreseen and have such warnings go unheeded. To see what is coming, take advantage, and walk away, allows one to feel intelligent, profit from the knowledge, and avoid looking back at the suffering of others who didn't see what is happening. This, of course, would be the corporate executives and Republicans in power who fought against regulation and oversight since 1994, and won.

Few off Wall Street are paying attention, but, there are fundamental structural changes taking place in our economy, that are going to require new economic models, metrics, and updated economics education if anyone is going to manage the economy well for Americans. The consumer backbone of our economy is yielding to exports and business consumption, even as the consumer's role in products and services shrinks.

Junior Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) brought to light this morning yet another revelation connected to the tragic Iraq War and tax payer dollar waste.