The New Deal Era & Now, Part Three
In mid January of this year, just days before Obama was sworn in as President, the Senate gave the authority for the release of the second installment of bailout money; that is, the remaining 350 billion dollars. In researching this just a bit, it seems that only one house had to authorize the release of the funds, and while both houses debated the issue, only the Senate voted. Also, the measure was not voted upon straight up, for or against, but the measure was put forth in "negative wording;" that is, opposing the release of the funds, and if a senator was against the money being authorized, he/she voted "FOR" the measure, and of course, "AGAINST" meant he/she was in favor of releasing the money. Anyway, the vote was 42 FOR and 52 AGAINST, and thus the money was released to the Treasury Department. The vote was: 33 Republicans, 8 Democrats, and 1 Independent (who caucuses with the Dems) "FOR" (but actually meaning against releasing the money), and 6 Republicans joined 45 Democrats and 1 Independent (who caucuses with the Dems) in voting "AGAINST" (but meaning for releasing the money).
After taking office, the new President was faced with the collapse of the American auto industry. Having had overwhelming support from autoworkers, he could have tried to give them everything they wanted, meaning more billions with no strings, but he didn't! Billions were given to tide over two of the companies, General Motors and Chrysler, but they were also given a time table to achieve a plan on how they were going to survive and potentially prosper (let alone stop losing billions). Remember folks, these companies were losing MILLIONS of dollars A DAY!!! Since that time, both companies presented plans and both were "eased" into bankruptcy with the help of "Uncle Sam," who took part ownership.* Current reports indicate that both companies may be out of bankruptcy far sooner than expected. Now, whether all of this will work....I have no idea. General Motors, especially, will be much streamlined, with far fewer brands and far fewer dealers. Chrysler has streamlined too, and will be combined with Italian automaker FIAT.
Will these, what I'll call, "Bush/Obama policies" work? Opinions vary, and to be honest, no one really knows for sure. Will these "remedies" prove to be as bad as the "disease?" Who really knows? Time will tell, but one thing is unmistakable, we have gotten ourselves into one grand mess. I suppose none of us is completely innocent, but some are outright guilty. Thirty years of free markets, with the removal of business regulations, or lax enforcement of what regulation existed, coupled with "trickle down" economics has taken a huge toll on America. We've had to learn all over again, what we should have learned from history; that is, substantial laizzez faire and trickle down DOES NOT WORK!
The handwringers of American society have worked themselves into a lather over government involvement in all of these things I've gone over in these articles. My question is, "Is our system so fragile and are Americans so insecure, that government can't intervene to try to halt a potential train wreck?" Let me tell you what this is about... MONEY and EGOS!!! With so many of these folks, it is always MONEY and EGO!!! They dream in dollars. Virtually every ounce of life is devoted to making more money in an attempt to soothe their insatiable egos. The rest of society can't keep up with them or their shenanigans, because WE DON'T THINK LIKE THEM! Many wealthy people and their money managers are terrified of government, because these folks don't have to answer to anyone.....except on occasion, to GOVERNMENT! (At whatever level: federal, state, local.) And they DON'T like it one bit! I wish there were a way of finding out what these egomaniacs were saying about the various current bailouts and those going back to the Bush Administration, and what their money was saying by how they invested it. If all of these companies had crashed last summer and fall, these folks (and many of the rest of us...maybe ALL of us) would be in even worse straits than we are today. Don't forget, these are many of the same people who wanted to get their hands on your Social Security money to ....ahh....invest it in the stock market!!! Remember that one? After seeing how THEIR whole system is just a mess, do you feel like turning over ANY money to these folks? If they want to be gamblers, they should go into business in Las Vegas.
Next...the final installment.... (A word history follows)
*The Canadian government also loaned them a smaller amount of money, and took a smaller ownership stake.
Word History:
King-This word "seems" to go back to Indo European "gen/gn," which had the notion of "production, offspring." The Old Germanic "offspring" (I couldn't resist that) of this was "kunjam," which seems to have meant "people, group of related people," from which Germanic developed "kuninggaz," seemingly "a leader of the people, offspring of the people." In Old English it was "cyning," and it was used for the name of Anlgo Saxon tribal chiefs, and later for the leaders of the individual Old English states, or provinces, if you will. Later still, when the English coalesced around a more "national" leader, that was the name given to him, and the name was then dropped for the regional leaders, and thus the title has carried forth until modern times. Germanic passed the term along to other non-Germanic languages like Russian and Finnish, for example, which use their own forms of the word. It prevails in all of the Germanic languages, as modern German has "könig", Dutch has "koning," Danish has "konge," Swedish "konung," Norwegian "konge". In English during the 1600s, the term also took on the additional meaning "big/large," as in "King Crab."
After taking office, the new President was faced with the collapse of the American auto industry. Having had overwhelming support from autoworkers, he could have tried to give them everything they wanted, meaning more billions with no strings, but he didn't! Billions were given to tide over two of the companies, General Motors and Chrysler, but they were also given a time table to achieve a plan on how they were going to survive and potentially prosper (let alone stop losing billions). Remember folks, these companies were losing MILLIONS of dollars A DAY!!! Since that time, both companies presented plans and both were "eased" into bankruptcy with the help of "Uncle Sam," who took part ownership.* Current reports indicate that both companies may be out of bankruptcy far sooner than expected. Now, whether all of this will work....I have no idea. General Motors, especially, will be much streamlined, with far fewer brands and far fewer dealers. Chrysler has streamlined too, and will be combined with Italian automaker FIAT.
Will these, what I'll call, "Bush/Obama policies" work? Opinions vary, and to be honest, no one really knows for sure. Will these "remedies" prove to be as bad as the "disease?" Who really knows? Time will tell, but one thing is unmistakable, we have gotten ourselves into one grand mess. I suppose none of us is completely innocent, but some are outright guilty. Thirty years of free markets, with the removal of business regulations, or lax enforcement of what regulation existed, coupled with "trickle down" economics has taken a huge toll on America. We've had to learn all over again, what we should have learned from history; that is, substantial laizzez faire and trickle down DOES NOT WORK!
The handwringers of American society have worked themselves into a lather over government involvement in all of these things I've gone over in these articles. My question is, "Is our system so fragile and are Americans so insecure, that government can't intervene to try to halt a potential train wreck?" Let me tell you what this is about... MONEY and EGOS!!! With so many of these folks, it is always MONEY and EGO!!! They dream in dollars. Virtually every ounce of life is devoted to making more money in an attempt to soothe their insatiable egos. The rest of society can't keep up with them or their shenanigans, because WE DON'T THINK LIKE THEM! Many wealthy people and their money managers are terrified of government, because these folks don't have to answer to anyone.....except on occasion, to GOVERNMENT! (At whatever level: federal, state, local.) And they DON'T like it one bit! I wish there were a way of finding out what these egomaniacs were saying about the various current bailouts and those going back to the Bush Administration, and what their money was saying by how they invested it. If all of these companies had crashed last summer and fall, these folks (and many of the rest of us...maybe ALL of us) would be in even worse straits than we are today. Don't forget, these are many of the same people who wanted to get their hands on your Social Security money to ....ahh....invest it in the stock market!!! Remember that one? After seeing how THEIR whole system is just a mess, do you feel like turning over ANY money to these folks? If they want to be gamblers, they should go into business in Las Vegas.
Next...the final installment.... (A word history follows)
*The Canadian government also loaned them a smaller amount of money, and took a smaller ownership stake.
Word History:
King-This word "seems" to go back to Indo European "gen/gn," which had the notion of "production, offspring." The Old Germanic "offspring" (I couldn't resist that) of this was "kunjam," which seems to have meant "people, group of related people," from which Germanic developed "kuninggaz," seemingly "a leader of the people, offspring of the people." In Old English it was "cyning," and it was used for the name of Anlgo Saxon tribal chiefs, and later for the leaders of the individual Old English states, or provinces, if you will. Later still, when the English coalesced around a more "national" leader, that was the name given to him, and the name was then dropped for the regional leaders, and thus the title has carried forth until modern times. Germanic passed the term along to other non-Germanic languages like Russian and Finnish, for example, which use their own forms of the word. It prevails in all of the Germanic languages, as modern German has "könig", Dutch has "koning," Danish has "konge," Swedish "konung," Norwegian "konge". In English during the 1600s, the term also took on the additional meaning "big/large," as in "King Crab."
Labels: English, etymology, Germanic languages, the Great Depression, the New Deal, unemployment
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