I haven't written here for over 2 months and with all that is occurring in the world (financial calamity, Mexico's drug war, Iranian hostility, Koreans wanting to launch missiles etc, etc) it would have been simple to ramble on about something, but I haven't had an interest. The fact is the chips will fall where they will and then I can add my 2 cents.

The country's financial crisis was predictable; in January 2007 I wrote about the growing homeless population and asked why no one in Washington was doing anything about it. In February 2007, I wrote about a Bush request for $254 billion more for the war effort and suggested alternative uses for that money in the US.

Does anyone remember "The War on Poverty"; legislation introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964? It was meant to address the economic conditions associated with a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. According to Wikipedia "Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, that Bill Clinton claimed "end[ed] welfare as we know it.""

So as I understand it; In 1964 a War on Poverty was launched to reduce the number of people living in poverty, but it was unpopular because people who were not living in poverty didn't want to pay for it. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the poverty rate in the U.S. increased between 2000 and 2004 (W's first term as President), though more people were spending and buying houses. Banks were deregulated and consumer borrowing increased. And then last fall there was a giant "POP" as the American bubble burst. Now the numbers of unemployed and homeless are on the rise once again and it is the Banks that want welfare, it's the auto industry that wants welfare and the people more than willing to spend more than they made that want help.

I really wish I could get fired up about this, but I can't. "You reap what you sew" I didn't elect Bush or the Republican Congress that deregulated the banking industry. I haven't taken my hard earned money and given it to a financier, in hopes that person will make me rich and I didn't buy a house I couldn't afford. I had no problem with the War on Poverty and have no problem with what Obama is doing. Others can bitch and moan about bailouts, but the alternative would destroy America's economy. Nope I will just sit back and let the chips fall where they may, knowing that those who are complaining are the same ones who are responsible for the situation.