Rose colored glasses

Depending on who you listen to or read in the U.S. today your probably have an apocalyptic outlook on the future: we'll either all be slaves to the tyrannical federal gubbermint or anarchists with no one to lead us down the prim-rose path.

Have you ever looked through a pane of antique window glass and seen a distorted version of what was really on the other side, or perhaps you've put on your Blu-Blockers and thought you could see the world more clearly. Does maybe the actual truth reside somewhere else?

One of the ideas presented in our group therapy sessions a couple years or so ago was the idea of questioning how we looked at and reacted to various pre-conceived notions long held.

I remember having looked at what used to be South Vietnam with the aid of Google Earth and seen towns where only villages were before. Where we had bombed into the stone age they were buildings and quarries and new roads. Fields were being worked where 30 years before only snakes, insect's and the NVA dared to go.

I was pissed beyond belief that as a country they had gone ahead with their lives while I and many others were still stuck in the past. Quite a shock to the mental system I must admit. I'd been looking at the world through glass colored differently that others and my vision was not clear.

It's the same with so many of us in today's political and financial climate. Because the glass we are looking through is colored by so many disparate versions of the facts we may well ask ourselves if we are seeing what is really there.

The following paragraph is from someone looking at us while standing in Hong Kong.

"The first action Mr. Bernanke should take is to resign. If I had messed up the system so badly, as he has done, I would have to resign. He has talked constantly about the Great Depression and what caused the depression but the problem is that he really doesn't understand what caused the depression, which was also excessive leverage at that time. I have to stress that in 1929 the debt to GDP ratio was of course minuscule in comparison what it is today. It was 186% of GDP but you didn't have Social security, Medicare and Medicaid and unfunded liabilities for Social Security and so forth. So, debt today, as a percent of GDP, is 379% and if you add the unfunded liabilities we are at over 800%. The Federal Reserve should pay attention to that."

If you ask our bean counters in the feeble gubbermint in the District of Criminals, their numbers are no where even close to those.

800% of GDP? WTF? One could be forgiven if they were to throw up their hands in disgust.

"The solution is, basically, for the government to move out and not intervene in the economy. There are economists who will dispute that the Federal Reserve is partially responsible for the crisis and there are economists that will still tell you that debt doesn’t matter, that deficits don't matter and they want to continue to intervene in the free market constantly. To these economists I respond: What about Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac? It was an intervention by the government into the housing market and into the mortgage market and the biggest bankruptcies—bigger than Citigroup and all the banks—are Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac—government-sponsored enterprises. The same economists will tell you that the government has to intervene and to these economists I say: Well, you have made so many mistakes already with interventions do you think that in the future your interventions will improve anything? Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but these economists and the Federal Reserve think that by more interventions with fiscal measures and more money printing they will improve things. No, they won’t. They will make things worse.."

Where does the truth lie? Beats the shite out of me. You'll have to do your own research and voting.

One thing of which I am very certain. We have to make great changes and if you don't vote you have absolutely no business decrying anything that happens as you couldn't be bothered to contribute your opinion.