It's bad enough that these idiots are embarrassing to our friends & co-workers, but now the embarrassment has gone global.
Literally.
The Guardian has always been a good mag, but the way in which this article in particular was able to analyze this story is even more ahead of what we see in the US. We often hear about the racism of the baggers of tea, but rarely the misogyny.
I'm not sure what's more embarrassing: having UK publications & al Jazeera providing better coverage of our politics than our own news networks, or the fact that we are showing our collective asses like this for the world to see, on a nearly continual basis.
Even UK mags can see the wisdom of statements like this:
George Bush and Barack Obama spent $700bn bailing out the banks, after the banks' housing Ponzi scheme collapsed. Obama spent another $787bn on the so-called "stimulus package". Every man, woman and child in America paid $5,000 to rescue Barack Obama and John McCain's top-hat-and-monocle-wearing friends. And the unemployment rate is still 9.6%. You still can't pay your mortgage or rent.
If the banks had collapsed, every homeowner who needed to could have called the bank and said, "I'm going to only pay you what I can afford, and you'll have to take it because you're too weak to say no." The free market would have solved the housing crisis. Obama and McCain only wanted the free market to apply to the little man, not their rich banker friends.
Banks have seized thousands of homes. What can we do?
First, reverse each and every foreclosure where bankers filed false documents. Arrest those bankers, right now. Filing false documents in court is illegal. Treat the banks like any other racketeering organisation that schemes to make millions by breaking the law. Bring the paddywagon, and give all these homes back to the families.
Second, nationalise the banks. If they say they are "too big to fail", and hate the free market when it applies to them, then make them a government organisation. Cut the average top banker salary from $20m a year to $45,000 a year. Bankers do not deserve big money. The free market has spoken: their businesses collapsed.
Third, use eminent domain to seize all of the other thousands of foreclosed properties that blight the urban landscape, and transfer them to families needing homes. The supreme court of the United States says that eminent domain can be used to transfer land from one private owner to another in order to further economic development (Kelo v. City of New London).
It's a sad day when that particular author becomes a voice of semi-reason.
It's an even sadder day in America when even people in the UK have figured out that thisguy has a better economic plan than thisone.