Volunteer to Fight for the U.S. Economy

Things now are officially so bad in the Great Recession that those of us near the bottom of the economic food chain need to start doing something--anything!--to try to fuel a recovery from the bottom up.

President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill--with almost no constructive help from the Republicans--are struggling to do what they can, within the painfully slow, inefficient and chaotic framework of U.S. politics.

Meanwhile, many among us are suffering and getting their butts kicked. We need to try to help them, today.

Can you start a business, no matter how small? Can you create a job, even part-time, temporary or something for a consultant to do? Can you do it today?

Will you do it today?

Can you buy something extra? (It almost doesn't matter what: a latte, a Lamborghini, a Lava soap bar, a lava lamp, a leg waxing, a loaf of bread.) Almost anything you buy can help save or create a job. Can you buy something today?

Will you do it today?

Can you use and pay for somebody's service? Get the gutters cleaned, get a bicycle repaired, get a haircut, get a pizza delivered--today?

Will you do it today?

Can you donate money or food to a food bank and clothes, unneeded tools and other useful items to Goodwill, the Salvation Army and other organizations and agencies in your community? Can you do it today?

Will you do it today?

And don't forget churches, whether you attend or not. Many churches now are struggling to keep unemployed members, parishioners and strangers afloat even as they try to keep their own doors open, too. Can you donate a few bucks to one or more of them today?

Will you do it today?

Anything and everything we can comfortably afford to do needs to be done...today. Now. Immediately.

Do it today.

Start pushing the economic recovery from the bottom up and keep pushing. Do it today.

Maybe those at the pinnacle of the economic food chain soon will learn how to stop playing "gotcha" games (we can only hope) and start helping push recovery dollars downward where they are now desperately needed.

And maybe we'll all meet in the middle soon and hope things never get out of control like this again.

But it all starts by doing something today.

-- Si Dunn

It's the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh Economy, Stupid

It's funny--yet not really funny at all--how the current economic crisis suddenly exploded into public view just a few short weeks before the end of the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh Administration. And lawmakers were given something like one week to come up with massive amounts of bailout cash, or else the American and world economies would all swirl down the tube like a flushed toilet.

Conspiracy theorists might postulate that Republican insiders were frantically trying to keep the meltdown hidden until BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh made it out of office, so the economy then would implode just after President Barack Obama was inaugurated. And Democrats would get all of the blame for the collapse just as they tried to put forth their agenda of change and help for the downtrodden middle class and poor.

Anyway, it all blew up on the GOP's watch, and the elephant boys now are feeling the wrath from people all over America and the world while they frantically try to deflect the criticism toward President Obama--and make it "his" economy.


“Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress,” Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, recently told the New York Times. “A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong.”

The blame needs to stay squarely on the true culprits: the "free market" Republicans who pushed financial regulation almost completely out of the economy and let crooks, pirates and others driven by greed take over and rip us off while steering corporations, funds and worker benefits straight into the ground.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently has said "Don't blame us for this mess." He was just trying--very unsuccessfully--to steer the spotlight away from the economic sins of the past eight years, during which he helped advise and preside.

It's still not Barack Obama's economy--not yet. We're still trying to cope with the financial horrors of the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh economy. And we will continue trying to cope with them for many months to come, until the Obama Administration's frantic flurry of emergency measures finally starts turning things around.

So, yes, do blame the free-market, anti-regulation Republicans for this current mess. Keep the spotlights squarely focused on BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh--and make them keep paying the electric bills for the illumination, as well.

For a long while, it seemed that the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan would be their main--and dubious--legacy. But those are small potatoes now, compared with the huge pile of burnt hash browns the GOP and their free-market cronies have made out of the American and global economies.

Once a recovery starts to take hold, remember who refused to help and cooperate in our nation's time of peril: the House Republicans and their incessant "No!" votes against the Obama Administration's proposals; and most (but not all) of the Senate Republicans, who keep clinging to the failed policies that nearly sent us into the Great Depression of 2009.

Oh, and especially the real head of the Republican Party: Rush "I Hope Obama Fails" Limbaugh.

--Si Dunn

Have We Recovered Yet? Well, Why Not???

By Si Dunn

It's getting ridiculous out there in World Recession Land.

Pollsters here and abroad are surveying the public on whether or not they expect President Obama to make a good speech to Congress tonight about the economic crisis. News flash: Some people do and some people don't expect the President to make a good speech tonight. And a few people have no opinion at all or just don't care. (Feel free to quote my unscientific but common-sense poll results.)

The Republicans already are attacking the speech before it has been given and lining up a multiracial presidential hopeful from Louisiana (that paragon of fiscal stability) to give the GOP "response." Can you say "Tax cuts"? How about: "Earmarks" and "Why weren't we consulted? We have a lot of good ideas, such as tax cuts...and more tax cuts. Oh, and tax cuts!"

Meanwhile, world economies seem to be in free fall. Their financial leaders are particularly worried about Citigroup and Bank of America and AIG, plus a few others. Meanwhile, everyday citizens here and in Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, China and elsewhere are blaming "greedy bankers" and "bank bonuses," because the rest of the mumbo-jumbo makes absolutely no sense to those of us who don't have MBAs and a few years' experience at investment banks and have just lost our jobs and life savings.

We can certainly imagine major investment fraudsters hanging from lampposts, but we can't figure out how to string up or shoot a "derivative."

Anyway, everything apparently hangs in the balance with President Obama's speech. The whole enchilada. Some people apparently hope he will come up with the magic formula that gets us back to "the good old days" by next Friday, or Monday at the latest.

Good luck with that. A good speech is just a good speech, unless it somehow generates a rallying cry that sweeps America and the world.

Look, no one is going to save us except ourselves. The recovery will have to come from the bottom up, because the top is in meltdown and total chaos and ruins.

Figure out what you can do today to help yourself, your family, your friends and your favorite small businesses stay afloat in these absurd times.

Spend some money. Save some money. Sell off some crap on eBay or Amazon. Unclutter your life. Get lean and mean. Take some classes. Learn some new things. Stay in touch, but don't let the bad news keep knocking you down.

The recovery starts with you, with me, with us. Let's get it started now.

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The Ridiculous Republicans Strike (Out) Again

By Si Dunn

Wow! Leaders of the Republican factions that did not support the recent efforts to get an economic stimulous package passed are now claiming President Obama is "off to a bad start," according to CNN Politics. And they are complaining that he is not being bipartisan.

With those two whines, the Ridiculous Republicans have just become the Amazingly Ridiculous Republicans. They have gotten so far out of touch with the economic crisis--and with the needs of the "real" American people--that they are now inhabiting a separate universe. It's a universe where America is ruled by a king, Rush Limbaugh, and everyone has a two-word vocabulary: "Tax cuts."

The Republicans certainly were not bipartisan when they held sway during the eight years of the Bush Administration. But now they are demanding bipartanship from President Obama, even though he has gone out of his way to confer with them--and promises to keep conferring with them.

"Almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote," the lead Amazingly Ridiculous Republican, Sen. John McCain, complained.

Well, sir, in case you have forgotten, that's often what happens to parties that end up with a minority of the votes.

A bunch of Republican-desired tax cuts did make it into the stimulous package, and as for the rest, well, the majority decided they sucked and took them out. That's just the way the process works, bucko.

So spare us the indignant complaints, please. Figure out some new ways you can step forward and work with the ruling majority to help get our nation out of the major mess your previous "leadership" helped create.

You lost. The other side won. Get over it and start putting up some fresh ideas, if you have any.

At this point, you've driven "tax cuts" straight into the ground.

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Take This Tax Cut...and SHOVE IT!!!

By Si Dunn

I managed to retire just in time. But now, some of my limited income and retirement savings are being used to help keep some of my adult children afloat.

They absolutely need a helping hand right now from the Bank of Dad. (Memo to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Dude, I may need TARP funds soon.)

I'm also hearing from friends now doing the same thing. All across America, millions of branches of the Bank of Dad and the Bank of Mom are bleeding capital.

Their grown kids are out of work, out of health care coverage and having to quit college for lack of money. And their new-job prospects are zero. They fill out application after application and add them to thick stacks of other applications piling up for the same low-end, no-benefits position.

To the Republicans currently fighting tooth and nail (gold tooth and manicured nail, of course) against President Obama's economic recovery package, I have just one thing to say: Take all of your pet tax cuts...and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.

The need for jobs is NOW. The need for health care assistance is NOW. The need for more college funding is NOW. The repairs to crumbling infrastructure need to be done NOW.

And the money needs to be there NOW, not sometime in 2010 or 2011 or 2012, if it miraculously trickles down at all. Millions of people are hurting, scared and worried...NOW...and they need help and reassurance...NOW.

How will one your prized tax cuts feed their family tonight? How will a tax cut pay for their doctor visit and prescription medications tomorrow? How will a tax cut keep a son or daughter from dropping out of college next Monday?

Senators and Congresspersons, what part of NOW do you not understand?

Clearly, you don't venture much outside the Beltway, nor outside your cozy, socially-insulated clubs of well-off friends. Your advisors feed you just what you want to hear: Everything's rosy and another tax cut will make life even better.

President Obama went to Elkhart, Indiana, and held a town hall meeting in a city where unemployment is now approaching 16 percent. He answered stimulus and tax cut questions and tried to reassure Americans that we can get through this very real crisis if we work together.

What have you, Republicans on Capitol Hill, done lately for middle-class and lower-class Americans...except to stretch out their pain, heighten their fear and feed their sense of uncertainty with your stalling tactics, posturing speeches, and appalling yammerings about "tax cuts" and "pork."

There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who would dearly love to have some pork--just a few slices--at their dinner table tonight.

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Ridiculous Republicans Say: "Let Them Eat Tax Cuts!"

By Si Dunn

On a day when the national economy continued to swirl down a giant, gold-plated toilet, not a single House Republican voted in favor of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package, despite his best efforts to win their support.

"Let them eat tax cuts!" That was the message, in so many words, emerging from the now-minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives. "Tax cuts" seems to be the upper limits of their intellectual and patriotic vocabulary in this time of unnerving crisis. They have one idea and one idea only: "Taxes? We don't need no stinkin' taxes." (Well, perhaps that translates into a second idea deep within their shallow brains: "Government? We don't need no stinkin' government." But, of course, if they could follow that thought out to its logical conclusion, it would mean that they would be unemployed, former Congresspersons.)

These Limbaugh Republicans apparently agree with their talk-radio godhead who recently proclaimed that he hopes President Obama "fails" in his efforts to restore stability and growth to an American economy that now is in deep, deep voodoo, thanks to GOP's own governance efforts--or lack thereof--over the past eight years.

People who have no jobs can't eat tax cuts. They can't pay for health care with tax cuts. They can't go to the supermarket and pay for meat and bread and apples with tax cuts.

Tax cuts also won't put people back to work for companies that no longer can afford to sell their products nor keep employees on the job. Sure, tax cuts may help those companies not have to slash their dividends to stockholders quite so deeply. But tax cuts won't save the job of Joe the Welder now working on the line and looking over his shoulder for the next layoff ax.

If President Obama fails, we all fail. And House Republicans forever will be known as the ones who gave up first in this perilous fight to save the United States of America from economic catastrophe.

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