Always Positive, Sometimes Right

Last week, in Oakland, California, four police officers were killed by an ex-felon undergoing a “routine” traffic stop.   Over the past several days, I have read and heard commentary from the far-right lunatic fringe in the form of Michael Savage and the breast-beating excuses from liberal groups, each in their own way explaining the killings as the result of outside forces, excusing to some extent the moral, social and legal responsibility of the killer.  Two motorcycle officers were assassinated by a wanted ex-convict, Lovelle Mixon (more. . .)

One of the pleasures of publishing on-line is the reading of comments posted by readers who have been touched or angered or otherwise affected by my writing.  In many instances, those leaving comments offer questions and insights that may have been overlooked.  The past articles on how the United States economy had virtually tanked were no exception.

One writer posted an emotional comment concerning how he, himself, had been harmed by the economic collapse and mortgage meltdown.  Another asked,

Any comment on the biggest takers of ‘bribe’ (more. . .)

In my previous post, I discussed the Report issued this month by the Consumer Education Foundation with lists 12 events that have created the “perfect storm” that has caused the present financial meltdown and crisis that has affected the world.  I summarized the first six of these.  In my next and final post on this matter, I will recount the billions of dollars spent to influence legislators and administrations of both parties over the past 30 years, efforts that, to our collective shame, were successful.  (more. . .)

Our economy has driven off a cliff and most Americans have to be wondering how it happened. How did we go from a nation of steady and growing wealth to the financial abyss so fast?

The general reasons have been well publicized.  The people managing Wall Street investment banks, commercial banks and hedge funds made buckets of money by leveraging their firms to the hilt in order to gamble on exotic securities backed by bad loans. Then their house of cards collapsed and brought our (more. . .)

Over the past months the economy of the United States has taken a beating; the stock market was plummeting to remarkable depths and much of the country having lost confidence that the problems would or could be cured.  The far right core of the Republican Party was quick to blame Barack Obama, notwithstanding the fact that he has been in office less than two months and the banking, housing, mortgage foreclosure and unemployment debacle started during the Bush administration.  Moreover, in the opinion of most (more. . .)