Let's Review...

Some of the current GOP candidates have forgotten a few basics in:

Economics

1. Adam Smith is credited with establishing the basis of capitalism in his book: The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith was an economist and an enlightened philosopher who anticipated the clash between self-interest motivated economics and human nature, documented in his oft forgotten companion tome: The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

2. Economic growth in the last 30 years was greatest in the Clinton administration. Republican embraced Supply-side economics (a. k. a., trickle down) has resulted in thousands of factories and service centers, millions of jobs, moving out of our country. 23 million jobs were created during the Clinton years, while 3 million were created when George W. occupied the White House.

The federal budget deficit was reduced only in the Clinton years. The first year (2001) of the Bush admin had some carry-over budget surplus and still they managed to grow the deficit from $5.7 trillion to $10.2 trillion in the W era.

History

1. The Articles of Confederation contained the specifics of our first, weak, federal, US government; created and approved alongside the Declaration of Independence. The constitutional convention of 1787 happened because the founding fathers recognized the failure of the original, weak, central government. The US Constitution replaced the failed Articles of Confederation and created a strong, central (federal) government.

2. Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, drafted in 1777, outlined the specifics of religious freedoms that were not detailed in the Constitution.

In creating an entire federal government, including the Bill of Rights, in about one dozen pages (depending on font, font size and pagination) the founding fathers left many details to be defined by the republic’s new government.

3. If a nation were established as a truly Christian entity there would be one name (3 guesses, and the first two need not count) frequently and prominently featured in the founding documents; not done in the USA!

These are points that one need not believe because they are published here. All that has been included here can be verified in a variety of sources; something Republicans, pushing against these facts, have been hoping you won’t do. I encourage you to do precisely that verification; have at it!

Economic Re-regulation!

The RTC (Resolution Trust Corporation) picked up the pieces of the real estate debacle of the 1980s without any legal or regulatory consequences.

The current real estate and “mortgage backed” securities debacle is not yet causing any legal or regulatory consequences.

Do you believe that privatizing success (huge paychecks and bonuses to the people who caused the last recession from their casino on Wall Street) and socialized (taxpayer funded bail-out) failure is something Wall Street should be able to expect?

A few simple regulations (some reinstituted; all difficult to pass in the current quagmire that is the US Congress) could prevent a recurrence of the causes of both economic crises.

First, make mortgages, the only type of secured loan not currently, accessible to a bankruptcy court. Bring back the Glass-Steagall Act that was part of the legal remedy to the Great Depression; picked apart since 1980, the last remnants eliminated in 1999.

Without a director, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cannot fulfill its mission to police Wall Street. Politics stand in the way of confirming Richard Cordray to direct the CFPB just as it attempted to fluster Elizabeth Warren while she assembled the new regulatory agency. The flack comes to the US Congress, via lobbyists, from Wall Street.

The Street, financial casino of the USA and the world, is still finding new ways to avoid: regulation, review and responsibility. At some point we, the taxpayers, might tire of picking up the gamblers’ tab when the paper products created in the casino (the casinos’ operators claim said papers have value and reward themselves with great salaries and bonuses for shifting those papers around) are found to be worth only the paper they’re printed upon.