Ted Rall for September 07, 2012

And I’m sure many of those government workers at the convention are too, but the rest of us are hurting. I’m sure when it comes time to pay back that 17 Trill they will still be doing fine and us even worse.

Uh, well, after the ’08 crash Bush caused, yes, I AM better off.

AHEM. Mr. Bush didn’t cause the "08 crash. The late-stage capitalism we happen to be living through caused the crash, and is continuing to careen out of control, and neither twin capitalist party has a CLUE what to do to “fix” it.

Everyplace in the world is suffering a drop in their standard of living. I know so many folks in Los Angeles who, in ‘07 had jobs and careers and homes and marriages and now don’t.

The problem is the worldwide crisis of overproduction, which caused the crash of 1929 as well. You could say that this Depression is just a continuance of the first Great Depression, interrupted by World War II.

The politicians of both capitalist parties are totally out of touch with us because the ruling rich put them in office and keep them their. Meaning that they don’t represent us.

I don’t think GWB really ever wanted to be president. He certainly didn’t care four years ago, and doesn’t seem to care now, either. I, and most of my acquaintances, are better off now. Maybe we’re just lucky.

I’m better off than I was 4 years ago but I’m not better off than I was 12 years ago.

You are fortunate then, and be glad. I work for a medical company who has not been able to give a comparable bonus as in the pass nor did I get a raise this year because of the economy and the organization getting ready (spending) for the new obama-care regulations. But that was not going to effect us, I thought. I budget my income in order to have it when needed but am not putting into the economy as I should be.

Ted Rall is my favorite conservative cartoonist.

There’s at least one person who’s absolutely better off now than 4 years ago . . . Mitt Romney!http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/09/04/one-person-whos-better-off-under-president-obama-mitt-romney

Troops NOT in Iraq or Afghanistan any longer are better off, though we never should have been occupying either country.

YES, lose it Tigger, Obama SHOULD have attempted the veto on extending the “Bush tax cuts on the rich”, but they DID lower the taxes on the middle class. YES TIGGER, Gitmo should have closed, and sent the prisoners to the “mainland”, even though Bush DID SPEND BILLIONS to build a prison for only a couple hundred prisoners, for NO VIABLE REASON. Nancy Pelosi also SHOULD HAVE brought impeachment for lies and violations of the Constitution to the floor of the House charging both Bush and Cheney, but she did not. GET OVER IT!

As if you had access to a presidental cabinet session? Ha, ha, (explanation of ha, ha, heard “around the world!”

That’s right. We are no longer losing 800,000 jobs a month.You’re welcome.

Well, not 4 years ago, Bushs ecession was still his and deepening, go forward to Feb 1, 2009 at least,

My net worth is up 56.6% total from 2/1/2009, 43+ months, and I have been unemployed 3 times in the interval.

Bush took me up only 31.9% total in 8 full years !

Bush was juicing the housing market every way he could, under-staffing the regulators so they could not function, giving the speculators the wink and nod!

The economy, even under stimulus, was overdue to crash. Everyone in housing was way overexposed. Even with stimulus, the economy did not carry the Republicans to the election. Having been stimulated out of its mind before 2009, it was pretty jaded in response to stimulus after.

Stop it with the selective memory! Obama wanted to continue the tax cuts for the middle class, but the GOP House refused to extend the middle class cuts, unless the tax cuts on the wealthy were included.

As a whole, the United States are in much better shape than four years ago. A Republican in the White House would have ‘hoovered’ us from crisis into full blown depression. The stock markets and financial sectors are doing great, yet they are completely ungrateful to Obama. Wage earners are indeed suffering. We’ll continue to suffer until the private debts are paid off enough for people to start spending more, a miracle re-inflates the housing bubble or the government passes some big stimulus packages. Muddling through with the first option seems inevitable.It would have been great to see more aggressive policies from the White House, but let’s face it: the ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats wasted valuable time in 2008-2009, while watering down all of Obama’s plans. This opened the door to the do-nothing GOP takeover of the House.

It’s not Obama’s economy until he finishes fixing Jr.’s ECONOMIGEDDON…

There is an inevitable cycle to the business world. Whether it be automobiles, TVs, or computers. Whenever we create a new “Must Have” the market (which continues to operate on the Bigger Fool Theory) inevitably becomes over-saturated with that product and takes a downturn. Our most recent example: the stock in Facebook.

“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.”—William Gibson, quoted in The Economist, December 4, 2003(wikipedia)The technological unemployment by automation of the Third Industrial Revolution has forever changed manufacturing, then finance and management, then the service sector. “Lights-out” factories are now realizing the dreams of Star Trek’s Replicator (or K. Eric Drexler’s <a href=“http://e-drexler.com/p/06/00/EOC_Cover.html”Engines of Creation) and 3D printers like MakerBot are bringing it to the desktop. ‘Jobs’ in this 21st century are already unlike any before. Developing individual talent and skills will be the leisure activities of a new artisan class, who garden for healthy food, barter with neighbors, and make less do more in all possible ways. Volunteers and non-profits are helping, just a bit.The things that still involve ‘money’ (of which 2/3 was ‘bits on tape’ in the sixties, probably 99% now) will have to change too, since the Wall Street gamblers have stolen it all. If 70% of the Consumer Economy has no money, it’s a goner. A Basic Income Guarantee (or Negative Income Tax) for subsistence would put a floor under us. Entrepeneurs could add to that whatever they can.We could (if there was the will, and the pressure) re-instate Glass-Steagal to firewall banks from speculators, and bring back the sixties’ tax rates (up to 90%, or WWII’s 99%!), but the powerful money-crats who own both wings of the ‘two-party’ system won’t be happy with that.We could have enough for all, mostly machine-made, or we can have one of the many Mad-Max dystopias. The revolution will not be televised.

That’s just Rall’s drawing style. I admit I don’t care for it either – or his views.