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Published Brownsville Herald October 12, 2008

 We are told that the Nation is in financial crisis with worse to come in spite of the government angel reaching down from the heights of the Capital and the White House, to make things better with a check. This doesn’t really help me as I watched my 401k lose 30% in value.

On Tuesday the presidential candidates participated in a Town hall type debate. The first question went to Senator Obama who rather simplistically blamed the problem totally on the poor policies of the Bush administration rather than identify a focus, such as the loss of confidence in the credit facilities of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.

Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. were  identified two questions later by Senator McCain.

One of the best questions came early on when a lady asked Senator Obama
“How can we trust you both to fix the problems?” This came when both candidates were members of Congress and the Nation as a whole, trusts Congress (17% ) even less than President Bush. Needless to say the question wasn’t answered but more criticism was leveled.

It seems from the cursory research I have done, that the cause of the financial mess was a lack of oversight that goes back at least two administrations where some tried to establish regulation but were stymied by certain congresspersons who wanted to use Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac as methods of social engineering to provide houses to folks who could barely afford them. Incentives were provided to put more and more, less affluent, into homes resulted in many that were known to lack the ability to pay.

The loans were then packaged with others and sold as investments thus dragging other bank and investment companies into the mess.

In looking at the diving stock market and individual panic, I was reminded of the devaluation of the Mexican peso in 1983, It didn’t seem that the government ran out of money just that many Mexicans lost confidence. Could that be similar here? The houses may still have value and the institutions are not broke just that the public has lost confidence. I suspect that is nearer the truth and if so the bailout is just a restoration of confidence rather than a buying of anything.

Returning to the political circus, possibly one of the saddest things of the was that all the possible presidential choices that are expected to be on the ballot were not allowed to participate in the debates.

Thanks to the Internet Wikipedia the following lists as nearly all candidates as could be found by press time:

Bob Barr/Wayne Allyn Root  Libertarian; Barack Obama/Joe Biden  Democratic;  John McCain/Sarah Palin  Republican; Gene Amondson/Leroy Pletten Prohibition;  Chuck Baldwin/Darrell Castle  Constitution;  Róger Calero/Alyson Kennedy Socialist Workers; Charles Jay/Thomas L. Knapp Boston Tea ; Alan Keyes/Brian Rohrbough , Independent ;  Gloria La Riva/Eugene Puryear Socialism & Liberation ;Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente  Green; Brian Moore/Stewart Alexander Socialist;  Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzalez  Independent; Thomas Stevens/Alden Link Objectivist….

If you merely follow the media all you hear about are the issues of the Republocrats and Demopublicans. Why not check out the Libertarians and the Independents or even the real socialists to see what other thoughts are being considered.

It appears that there really is an “elite” ruling class, perhaps Congress or the media, who feels they are the only ones who know what is good for us, and then makes us pay for it? And in this case – we pay and pay…. Taxation with little or no say in how the money is spent is speedily becoming the norm.

It continues to appear that no matter whom we vote for “We the people” cannot really change anything.

One must still remember the lessons of the past whenever the legislators give something that they tell us is for our own good; it costs something in addition to increased taxes; the ability for the multi-headed bureaucracy to also control that part of our lives.

I believe it is definitely time that we rethink what is important to us and take a much more active part in the political process, it would appear that both the traditional parties, are controlled by professional bureaucrats, intent on grasping more power, not citizen statesmen, as was envisioned by our forefathers.

They are letting us down and need to change or be replaced. We need to look at other thoughts and concepts. I try to examine as many as I can find with regularity and so far the Libertarians support much of my direction.

How does this end? We must support new candidates that have new ideas that agree with our views, vote for them or your choice not to vote will be a vote for the same things to continue.