It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

There's been a lot of talk recently about big changes in the US. We are running the largest deficit in history, increasing at a record rate which is around 4x higher than the previous administration (which was ridiculed for their enormous deficit spending by the people in the current administration). Our economy is in tatters, still losing jobs as debt-fueled personal consumption is not recovering, no new bubble is appearing, and our production base has been all but destroyed. Our public education system is horribly inefficient and ineffectual, our more liberal states are struggling to correct years of over-spending, and our de-facto global economic leadership is being questioned. In response to this, our government under President Obama has taken bold measures. We have increased deficit spending, giving out Trillions of dollars to the banks which helped caused the reckless gambling economic meltdown. We have virtually nationalized our automobile industry, helping to ensure they wi...

If you're reading blogs, I'm sure you've seen it; if not, here's a good reference article. Couple of quick thoughts: - All the outraged liberals should be ridiculed for being hypocritical scum; there was a nearly identical image of Bush published in a magazine during his tenure, and Bush/Cheney have been called much worse explicitly. - To say that the "socialist" label is hurtful and dangerous is like saying an expose of illegal activities is hurtful and dangerous to the perpetrators; it may be so, but it's accurate, and free speech is a right we still (mostly) enjoy in the US, at least for now. Whether or not socialism is good for America is debatable, but anyone who doesn't at least acknowledge that Obama's policies are socialist is too stupid to vote, in my opinion. - There are many potentially applicable quotes from the movie which could be applied to Obama, but I particularly like this one: "And in their desperation they turned to a man...

From the "my wacky ideas" file: I think there should be a couple more qualifications in civil suits rather than simply a judgment against the accused or lack thereof. Specifically, I think the court/jury should also have the right to say (in addition to the regular judgments) that the lawsuit had no merit, and that the legal representative for the plaintiff should have been aware of this before bringing the action. This, in and of itself, would not change the system at all, but that brings me to my associated idea... I think to file a civil lawsuit, against anyone, you should first be required to post a bond in the amount of reasonable court and defense counsel costs. This bond would be forfeit if you drop the action (at least in the amount of incurred court/counsel costs at that time), or if your case is dismissed for lack of merit. If you win, or the case is determined to have merit but is decided against you, you get the entire bond amount back. The actual bond itself coul...

Another contemplation of late: it's a rather unfortunate situation, in the voting population today, that there's a distinct lack of accurate long-term accountability for actions and policies, and their effects. This is certainly a phenomenon not restricted only to the political spectrum (eg: some people are baffled about how typical executive compensation packages destroy large corporations in the long-term), but it's especially noticeable and distressing in the political arena. How would Americans ever expect to be able to elect competent leaders, or judge their actions, I wonder, if they cannot even accurately correlate policies to effects? For example, consider California's budget. The state has a massive deficit, which is causing much distress, and is proving very difficult to address for the current politicians. As a resident, one might be inclined to get rid of the politicians which created this mess, but to do so, one would have to understand the underlying cause...