Bush’s Blunder and the Economy
3 Comments Published December 5th, 2008 in National and International Issues.Can we spend over a trillion dollars blowing holes in the ground in Iraq and expect to prosper?
Today’s news is full of the recent November jobs report. We lost more jobs in November in America than we have in 35 years.
What’s the difference between a recession and a depression?
Answer: A recession is when someone you know loses their job. A depression is when you lose your job!
A review of the news doesn’t highlight what I believe is the most fundamental link of all. They read like we just sort of accidentally stepped into it.
We have spent over a trillion dollars just blowing things up in Iraq, people! And that’s ON TOP OF all the money we spent blowing things up in the rest of the world. On top of missile bases in Eastern Europe. On top of aircraft carriers patrolling Taiwan. On top of new artillery guns to refight World War II in Europe. On top of B1 bombers crashing in the Pacific.
Let’s review what a trillion dollars is.
A million dollars is a goodly chunk of change. To give you a good idea about how much money that is, we’re building a new water tank in Color Country. The whole project will cost a bit more than two million dollars. Even though we’re getting some help to pay for it, the town will still have to get a municipal bond to pay the rest over twenty years.
A billion dollars is a thousand million. You could build new water tanks for every town in Utah with that kind of money.
A trillion dollars is a thousand billion. Or, put another way, a million million. You could build new water tanks all over planet Earth with that kind of money.
When the Iraq war was just cranking up, they literally flew plane loads of hundred dollar bills over there. (Big plane loads. I’m talking about big wooden pallets loaded with hundred dollar bills.) For a while, everything in Iraq cost $100 … because there just wasn’t anything smaller that you could spend to make change.
Back then, you couldn’t even suggest that maybe we couldn’t actually afford Bush’s Blunder without being accused of being unpatriotic or maybe even a terrorist yourself. The real terror is not being able to put food on your family’s table. I see a direct link between Bush’s Blunder and the tail-spin our economy is in now.
The big mystery to me is why Bush’s job rating is still around 25 percent. One in four people still don’t get it.
(46 days before the nightmare is over.)
How very much I agree with you Dan. I also am aghast and amazed and completely puzzled by the 25% of the American people who think Mr. Bush is just a fine misunderstood fella’ who did and is doing a good job being President. If asked, what wquld they say about how we got into the terrible mess, all of the terrible messes, we are in? One of the main reasons I wish we could impeach Mr. Bush is because perhaps, with all of the length of doing something like that, perhaps, perhaps Mr. Bush and that 25% would begin to get an inkling the long impeachment proceeding, of just what he has done to each of us, to our country, to the entire world. I wish he could be forced to sit still and listen, over and over, to a recitation of all he has done. It just saddens and maddens me that he is going to go out in life and spend the rest of his life playing on his ranch, living his good life, and have no clue whatsoever of what he has done. What a sad chapter in our history his presidency has been. I think we will recover, over time, but many, many people, in the United States and all over the world will suffer as we recover. And he, Mr. Bush, who directly is responsible for the suffering (the buck does stop at the Presidency – it comes with accepting the Office), will go blissfully on with his unenlightened life.
There is a certain percentage of people who will never have anything bad to say about the President of the United States without regard to who he is. Listening to local talk radio shows Bush still has fans in Color Country.
By the way —
An economic downturn is when your neighbor loses his job.
A recession is when you lose your job.
A depression is when your wife loses her job.
I love it!
The first liar doesn’t have a chance around here. I admit it. You win.