So who do we need in the White House next January? Again look back to see ahead.
Bush has been compared with Herbert Hoover, and not without good reason. And even now, he follows in Hoover's failed footsteps.
In 1930s the nation found itself in the same fix. Wall Street had been allowed -- even encouraged -- to run wild by Republican President Herbert Hoover. And, surprise, surprise, when left to their own devices Wall Streeters fouled their own nest, and everyone else's.
October 2, 1930: “During the past year you have carried the credit system of the nation safely through a most difficult crisis. In this success you have demonstrated not alone the soundness of the credit system, but also the capacity of the bankers in emergency.” — Herbert Hoover, Address before the annual convention of The American Bankers Association, ClevelandThen, as the economy continued to implode, Hoover created something called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, (RFC) a federally-owned bank to bail out commercial banks by extending loans to them, much as the privately-owned Federal Reserve is doing today.
That's pretty much what this administration has been up to this week.
But history teaches that Hoover's ploy failed. The last thing big banks needed was more debt... they had too much debt already. What they needed was for ordinary Americans to begin investing and spending again.
When Franklin Roosevelt took over he understood that. so one of the first things he did was change the RFC's mission. Under Roosevelt the RFC stopped propping up big banks and turned it's attentions to propping up ordinary Americans by making loans for housing, agriculture and small business creation.
As that help began to revitalize the American economy Roosevelt again tweaked the RFC by having it begin extending credit for infrastructure repair and development. Historians say it was that spending that prepared the US for the second world war.
In other words, trickled down has never worked. Strong economies and strong nations are built from the bottom up, not the top down. Any stonewall builder will tell you that, while the big stones are the ones that standout in stone wall, it's the little stones that hold the big stones in place.
John McCain is a big stone kinda fella, like Bush. The only time he even acknowledges the existence of us small stones is when he needs our vote. If you doubt that just listen to him. He wants the to make the Bush tax cuts for the big stones permanent, and more tax cuts for them as well.
Only Barack Obama is talking about recreating the bottom up kind of economy that Roosevelt created and which made America the wealthiest and strongest nation on earth.
But as of today America is the Soviet Union, circa 1989.
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