American Spit

An AP article . by Christopher S. Rugaber, Jonathan Fahey, and Michael Liedtke , running in today’s (Nov.14,2011)  Fredericksburg, Va. Free Lance-Star newspaper, is titled  Europe’s woes will spill into U.S.

Really, Fred? Their woes will spill into our market? Like our woes didn’t spill into theirs first? Like the U.S. economy tanking had zero effect on the rest of the world?   American Financier shenanigans didn’t precipitate global economic disaster? American Politicians living in Corporate Deep Pockets didn’t cast pocket lint and other less savory detritus upon the European landscape? Letting banks wildly mix the types of credit they were allowed to dip their greedy little fingers into didn’t create the mess to begin with? 

The purpose of a law is to prevent the weak-willed from trampling the rights of others, and to lay out in clear terms the punishment of those who aren’t going to be deterred by some piddly little law. Corporations have been buying Politicians for as long as both entities have existed. Politicians have been re-writing laws to suit Corporations for about 1 day less than that. Loosen the laws, unleash the greed demons.

This is not unique to the United States – it goes on all over the world, in tiny little villages and ginormous countries. It is a big circle of economic dominos. America has (had?) dozens of dominos; fifty tiny African countries share one domino between them. Let that one domino tumble over and there’s a poof of dust when it hits the ground. Let America’s dozens, or Europe’s interlaced dozens, or China’s dozens go down and they take down all the dominos nearby, racing around the circle. It’s a big circle. It takes a while.

American is starting to get a few dominos upright again. They aren’t firmly seated yet. They still wobble in a strong breeze. European dominos falling make a pretty strong breeze, seriously, if our economy hadn’t tanked first – if our mess hadn’t shaken all the dominos in the circle, Europe’s problems wouldn’t be a massive threat to our recovery. This isn’t  “Europe’s Woes” spilling into the U.S. This is more like the backwash of our own unsavory spit gagging us.