It Begins: My Brother Witnessed a Run on a Bank
Got a message from my brother. He saw the run on the IndyMac Bank in Duarte, California.
Let me introduce this with dueling headlines. From the Pasadena Star-News:
IndyMac appears close to collapse: US regulators may not be ready to protect bank
And from the LA Times:
IndyMac denies that it's close to collapse: "Depositors have been pulling money from the Pasadena-based thrift, whose share price is down 90% this year."
Today, my brother saw a crowd at the Duarte IndyMac Bank desperately trying to get their savings out. Many elderly people were claiming that they are being offered dollar for dollar on the first $100,000...after that only fifty cents on the dollar.
This, my friends, was the result of the Harding/Coolidge/Hoover economy...and it is the result of the Bush/McCain economy. Economic collapse. Let us desperately hope that this will be a fairly isolated occurance. Collapse now won't be the same as the Great Depression. I do not forsee food and fuel prices declining, so this time around we aren't going to see cheap prices going along with our high unemployment, failed farms and failed banks. It seems to me was are heading for a bizarre combination of the Great Depression and the Stagflation of the Nixon/Ford/Carter years. To paraphrase "Those Were the Days," the All in the Family Theme Song:
"Mister, we could use a man like FDR again."
Many are good folks
Many in Congress are good people. Problem is you start with a two party system, so you start close to a 50/50 split on most issues. From there you hope to work left or right depedning on the issue. But the right wing has been so strong for about 20 years that many very good progressives are shell shocked from right back to the Reagan years. Until we rise above those days of despair for the left, we will lose. From what I am seeing, THIS year we are rising above that right wing dogma in state after state. Let's run with it folks! If we don't we may yet lose.
Returning to FDR isn't modern enough. We need some combination of FDR, Reagan (whether we like it or not), and Clinton/Gore. All mushed together that isn't such a bad mix. So let's start from that and see where we can go.
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I wish FDR would come back from the dead
Nobody had as much guts as he did. He wouldn't let this happen..... Do you listen the hearning in congress. They are so lame. No spine at all.