After so long, it’s finally over. Barack Obama has won the presidency. I can’t express how happy I am. It’ll still be up to Obama to prove to America that he’s got what it takes, but at least Americans are willing to give him a chance.
I hate politics. That is all.
(Hear that, political campaigns? Your negative attack ads have jaded me so much that I don’t particularly care for any of you. If your plan was to alienate possible supporters, you are doing a fine job. Carry on.)
I’m not really sure what to make of this “economic crisis” we’re apparently in. On the one hand, it is rather unnerving to watch a number of banks give up the ghost, including Washington Mutual (based right here in Seattle), but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be impacting me at all. Sure, I’m having a hard time getting a job, but, considering my past luck in procuring employment, that’s not surprising in the least.
It’s an interesting coincidence that I’m taking a history course right now that’s dealing with the economic situation of the 1930s, including the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. There were numerous bank failures and credit problems during that time period, just as there are now. It’s a bit eerie, but I have noticed that the proposed solutions are nothing like FDR’s solutions. Of course, the situation today isn’t nearly as dire (unemployment is still around 6%, not the whopping 25+% of the early thirties), but I have yet to hear any decent explanation of the bailout that just died in Congress. Why $700 billion? What would that money be used for? What good would that do? No one is really telling. Contrast that to FDR’s fireside chats over the radio, where he explained to the American public in straightforward terms what the government was doing to deal with the depression. President Bush’s recent speech about the economy wasn’t exactly informative or reassuring, even if he did avoid using the word “depression”.
The thing to remember through all of this, though, is that self-regulation by corporations (even banks) is not necessarily a bad thing, just as regulation by the federal government isn’t necessarily a good thing. I don’t know how this situation will be resolved, but I know that more government interference in the market is not the right answer. After all, the Great Depression didn’t end because of the New Deal. For better or for worse, it came to an end due to the onset of World War 2, when industry picked up to improve the U.S. military. Hopefully we won’t need any such thing this time around.
Wow, I kind of haven’t been updating this at all. Strange, considering I couldn’t stop posting while school was in session. There’s not a lack of stuff to get irritated about, that’s for sure.
I do have a bit of good news, however. Washington state has abandoned the rather short-lived party ballot primary system, where voters would choose which party (Republican or Democrat) to vote for during the primary and only vote using that ballot. I don’t even know what the original reasoning for that method was, but it’s been dumped in favor of the new “top 2″ primary system. Now, voters can vote for whoever they want on the primary ballot, regardless of party preference. The top 2 vote-getters in each partisan position then go on to the actual election.
It’s a much nicer system because it allows people to vote for the people, not the party. It used to be that if you wanted to vote for a Republican governor in the primary, you’d also have to vote for Republican senators, representatives, attorney generals, etc. Now, you can vote for a Democrat governor, a Republican senator, and an independent attorney general all on the same ballot.
Of course, the choices haven’t gotten any better. The majority of the people running for governor this year are either complete nutcases (one guy wants to ban cars) or more concerned with attacking their opponents than telling people what they would do as governor (seriously, this one guy used his entire statement to rip into the incumbent; nothing in there about his positions on the issues). Ugh.
At any rate, I hope to start publishing more updates to the blog. I’ve let it go so long, I posted once in the entire month of July. I really need to start getting indignant more. I must be losing my touch.