F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:00:33 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

hawke sez:

"lots of drivel -- - - - - then: " . . . We dodged a close one, folks. Like they say,
imagine her a heartbeat away from the presidency."

I can no more imagine that than I can imagine hawke as a credible commentator on a metal working
newsgroup.

Bob Swinney
=============
Perhaps the reporting is getting better, but these "near misses"
seem to be occurring more frequently and getting closer all the
time.

Given that it is only a matter of time before we as a nation have
a [financial] Katrina sweep in, it would appear that putting
plywood on the windows and bringing the lawn chairs and trash
cans inside would be a smart move. For example, what sort of
contingency plans are we making governmentally, corporate and
personal for when another Iceland occurs, e.g. Greece, Ireland,
Spain, or even Japan.

Instead it is business as usual only bigger and better. The
Current Accounts Trade Deficit is back up, with a little pencil
work the banks are reporting record profits, and the U.S. Federal
bond sales are going well.


And there lies the inherent flaw in conservatism. You keep doing what
you are doing until it stops working. It's like the people of Haiti
cutting down their trees for firewood until there are no trees left. You
just do it until you can't do it any more and are forced to change. That
is what we've been doing in this country ever since Reagan was elected.
We are not looking ahead, we are not planning, we are not preparing for
a world that is different from the one we now live in. That is the
essence of conservatism.

In the financial world they have done the same thing for decades. It has
made them lots of money. They will keep doing what they have done in the
past until it fails. Unless someone steps in and forces the changes. We
let our manufacturing go. We let the market make our decisions for us.
We let the corporations and the wealthy take control of the government.
Now we have to live with that until things come to a halt. I was kind of
hoping that Obama would be the guy who sees what's happening and would
turn us in a different direction. His escalating the war in Afghanistan
has made me think otherwise. So we will continue with our conservative
ways of not changing until we have to or we start looking ahead and
planning for the future. It used to be you could get away with letting
things happen on their own. I don't think that strategy is going to do
us much good from here on out. It's too bad that our history is one
where we react instead of planning ahead. It looks like change is not
something that is really going to happen unless things really break
down. I hope I'm gone before it happens.

Hawke