Canada, man. Canada.

Always good to hear from those kids.

Enjoyed the shit out of the '09 Junos.

But it creeps me deeply when they have such informed, urgent opinions about the machinations of our Executive and Legislative branches.

Mark Steyn has written two recent columns that deal with this very subject:

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3540/26
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3542/26

Here's one particularly great section:

"In a two-party system, you have to work with what’s available. In America, one party is openly committed to driving the nation off the cliff, and the other party is full of guys content to go along for the ride as long as we shift down to third gear. That’s no longer enough of a choice. If your candidate isn’t committed to fewer government agencies with fewer employees on lower rates of pay, he’s part of the problem. This is the last chance for the GOP to restore its credentials. If it blows it, all bets are off for 2012."

Well Crid, they certainly can't talk about their own politics. They might end up before an above the law Human Rights Commission.

I read a story saying that American consumer debt contracted about $1 trillion in the past 18 or so months.

Economic reality forcing you to downsize your lifestyle will do that.

The goddess writes: As I keep saying, the Republicans aren't the part[y] of smaller government, just smaller government than the Democrats.

I don't even believe they're the party of government smaller than the Democrats. They just say they are.

Oh, everybody's for smaller government, until it comes down to specifics. Then, everyone's for smaller government as long as his or her favorite program (vital to the country, dontcha know) remains un-gored. Regardless of who wins control of the Congress next week, I'll be surprised if anything more than very marginal cutbacks are enacted, or are even proposed.

Old RPM Daddy +1

Old RPM Daddy, I think you are right. No one will apply the brakes, let alone reverse direction. This bus will hit a wall, and that is how it will come to a stop.

The Republicans can't even claim to be the party of smaller government anymore, not after the debt accumulated by Reagan/Bush I and then Bush II. Both parties want their hands in your pocketbook; the Republicans want to be in your bedroom as well. That's the only advantage the Democrats seem to have these days.

Yes, the average citizens was spending $$ and living the "high life", most of them irresponsibly using borrowed money...of course they were only following the lead of Gov't and Wall Street - you know, those smart guys (just ask them, they'll tell you!).

But the average consumer savings rate went from roughly NEGATIVE 1 %, up to plus 7%...DURING the fiscal crisis! Meanwhile, gov't spending continued onward and upward. This is most blatantly obvious to me when you compare private sector employment numbers vs. public sector.

Watching this i realized how out of touch our political leaders really are at this time, and i began to understand the whole T.E.A (Taxed Enough Already!) Party momentum thing.

I would like to see the graphs on which percentages of the population have which percent of debt. I have a feeling that if one were to dig into the internals, one would find that a whole bunch of people with modest-to-moderate savings were being offset by a relatively small number of people who were in debt up to their eyeballs. This is admittedly based on anecdotal observation, but of all my acquaintances, I can only think of two who are carrying significant amounts of debt relative to what I think their income probably is. As for my wife and myself, we pay off our credit cards each month; we paid cash for both of our cars, and we have no other debt except the mortgage. The house is admittedly our dream house, but we put 50% down on it plus hundreds of hours of sweat equity.

I've been trying to find some stats on the percentage of people who have filed bankruptcy more than once, but according to here, there are some particulars about the way bankruptcies are filed that makes bankruptcy stats not very reliable (e.g., multiple Chapter 13 filings that are really just continuations of the same case).

yeah, flatscreen TV's are definitely luxury goods, now that you can't buy anything else at walmart... And I know I'm not the only one hoping my old CRT will keep going for a while...

see, a politician or pundit might not be so keen on reading the riot act to everyone, because we get scolded by politicians and pundits enough as-is.

what did the old man call it? "Irrational Exuberance"? Yeah, we did that for a while, the problem was the extremes that were done. The government on the other hand, hasn't much excuse, if everyone is shouting STOP. After all this time, I can find no resonable explanation for Obamacare, especially since it doesn't really kick in till AFTER his term. The gather ing of money started right away, though. The feeling of disruption for small business, and of unsuraty in govt. mandates also started right away.

Might've gone OK in the go-go 90's/00's but NOT during a recession like this. And yet? we obviously didn't know what was good for us. After all the masses? Yeah, they know nothing, and they smell bad. OI!

...But why do Palin and Beck and the Tea Party members never say what is obvious: Americans were spending like drunken sailors for the past few decades, taking advantage of low interest rates and cheap imported goods from Asia.

I am very reluctant to post links to my own blog here, but some topics require much more pixelage than is suitable for a thread comment.

What is at stake here is the US savings rate.

About which there is a great deal of nonsense.

Takeaways: The personal savings rate is almost certainly far greater than cited; and there is no sense of what it should be.

Which means the notion that Americans were spending like drunken sailors just might have little basis in fact.

> This is the last chance for the GOP to
> restore its credentials. If it blows it,
> all bets are off for 2012."
>
> Posted by: Robert W. (Vancouver)

Now, is there anyone else here, anyone at all, who's creeped out by the intimate, we're-all-in-this-together tone that our friends from the Great White North employ when they discuss these most distinctively national interests of ours?

I've said this before... It's like a next-door-neighbor –one you don't even like very much– who tries to peek down your wife's blouse at the block party... And then makes teenage jokes with you near the burger grill (in front of other, more distant neighbors) about what he sees.

'Well, dude, OF COURSE we all talk about your wife's rack... She's the one with the big tits!'

But in fact, she isn't your wife, these aren't your candidates, and it's not your election.

It's not merely inappropriately chummy: It's delusional. It's a psychosis seen in a dozen other realms, too, like the United Nations, NATO, the international finance conferences (Davos, etc.), almost all internationally published media... And now, throughout the internet (which is itself another distinctly American gift to the world.) People around the world speak —and sincerely seem to feel— as though they have a personal stake in these matters. It doesn't matter that their own governments are brutally authoritarian, or kleptocratic, or flatly incompetent. They think their perspectives on our elections deserve to be heard and taken into consideration, even though—

• They have no vote

• They've never paid a dime in United States taxes

• They've not even started the work we've done to forge responsible governments; vibrant markets; peaceful, cooperative churches; and successfully integrated neighborhoods. (Always remember: Over the lifetime of most who read these words, the United States has welcomed more immigrants than all the other nations of the globe combined.)

• And their national borders and stability are nonetheless guaranteed by the soldiers and taxpayers of the United States of America, who would rather have given their lives, and spent the money, on something else.

I think it's pathetic. Well, that's fine... I often think other nations are pathetic.

But let's not let any of these motherfuckers lecture us about responsible political identity. They don't know what's like to be American. They don't go through the incredibly rigorous and detailed educations and socialization we go through. They have no appreciation of the negotiations and adjustments we make with each other every (toiling) day of our lives. They never see the procedures and agreements which make us so incredibly dynamic, productive, and yes, wealthy. They just don't know what it takes to thrive in the United States.

A proper American life encourages lots of dreaming about how the world can be, because when you put in the work here, those dreams come true. When people in these other lands begin to make that effort for themselves –in their own wretched little communities– they'll find the chattering particulars of our day-to-day governance much less enrapturing. And all our lives will be the richer for their new, responsible independence. We in the United States look forward to it.



Meanwhile, the last nation on Earth from which I want to hear clucking about responsible conservative "credentials" is Canada. Because, like, you're kidding, right? Off the top of my head, I can name just one Canadian politician (non-PM)... Stronach, and that's mostly because she was said to be one of Clinton's special playmates.* (Well, also Ignatieff, but he's much less sexable than Barbara.)

(And let's not forget that she's a daughter of wealth: Wealth earned in the markets of the United States auto manufacturers.)


Dear Canada/others: When you're equipped to lead our political insight through example rather than gossipy prattle, you'll find that your persuasion soars. In college, I took much more instruction from the bearing of men who'd actually earned the love of a busty girlfriend than from the Joe Cool-types in sunglasses.... Solitary guys who had much to say about the social circles in which they never moved, guys who far too often found themselves burning their jackets as they leaned against the stove at parties.


___________________

* A favorite recent tweet.

Whoops! The woman's name is BELINDA, not Barbara.

My mistake. Sincerely sorry.

It can be so difficult remembering what's going on with all these little nations....

For all their talk about the abuse of government, there is no real talk about self-responsibility and taking blame.
- - - - - - - - - -
... then you don't understand the message that Palin's family portrait sent to most adults.

Palin didn't let her daughter trash the family's values and get an abortion. Instead they insisted that she and her boyfriend see through the consequences of their bad choice.

That is also the message a lotta married adults got from her decision not to abort her own handicapped child.

Perhaps y'all were being too busy sneering at what a hayseed and fundie she was, just as the media prompted you to - but The Rest of Us saw a very clear example of self-made people who take personal responsibility very seriously - even when it hurts, even out of the limelight.

The beauty of a free society, without an all powerful government handing out favors, is that we would not have to care much about how much credit people are using.

Say some company BankCardCo is loaning too much money to Mike. Mike can't pay it back. Who cares, except BankCardCo and its stockholders? BankCardCo will be out of business soon, and its stockholders will be poorer, but it doesn't affect me much.

Sure, I would prefer that BankCardCo had made better decisions, but that is their business. Almost all companies like BankCardCo will make good decisions, if they lack government backing.

The bug in the soup is that we do have an all powerful government, contrary to our Constitution, that hands out favors. They are willing to bail out BankCardCo, and did so before our eyes, using our money. Now, bad decisions are encouraged (moreal hazard) by the political guarantees of the government. When BankCardCo's lose money, the cry goes out that we have to save them (sniff, tears).

They are robbing us blind, under the guise that they are only taking the money of the other guy (the rich guy). Wake up. They are taking the future from us all and stuffing it into their pockets.

Our recession was promoted by collapsing home prices and mortgage losses, after an extended period of government providing easy money and guarantees to support Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the entire banking system. The government is still doing this. The bad housing policy was designed, encouraged, and required by government, mostly by Democrats.

Here is what the guarantees mean: "Heads I win, tails you lose".

See → We Guarantee It - The Government Caused the Economic Crisis