End of Summer Vending & the Return of Bush?
Madeleine and Jim at Mabon
End of Summer
We finished our outdoor vending for this year at a Mabon (Autumnal Equinox) celebration in the East Mountains about 20 miles from our house. Thanks to all of you for a great August and September. Our next vending event is on October 30 at the Sandia Courtyard Hotel at Amaya’s Dance Seminar and Performance.
Green Man Pennant
Bush Again?
George W Bush is not on the ballot , but his ideas may make a major comeback this November. It looks like a bad year for the Democrats. Usually it is normal for the party in power to lose legislative seats in the election following a big win (2008). However the reasons that the Democrats will probably lose big are not rational.
Republicans have offered nothing new to end our deep recession. Instead, they just want to repeal the Democratic successes on health care, and Wall Street reform. Stop the government spending that has kept some jobs and then maybe attack social security (a perennial favorite cause for them). Had social security been privatized in 2008 & 2009, a lot of us would have lost most of our investments and income in a private social security system.
The subprime mortgage meltdown is a perfect example of what unregulated capitalism can do to us. The rich always want to get richer. If lending money to unqualified buyers will make them richer, then so much the better. The result of almost unregulated mortgage lending is that we are in a recession that may take 3 to 5 years for full recovery.
At one time the various financial institutions were limited in the types of lending they could do. Banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies were supposed to make prudent investments in their respective fields. Then along came Republican deregulation. The argument was that all these instiutions should be able to maximize their profits without governmental restrictions.
The financial institutions made record profits for a while by investing heavily in subprime mortgages. Now they are all stuck in the same recession, because they made the same type of bad investments. Will Bush policies return to do more of the same damage? I hope not.
I could go on, but I will stop until the next time.