By Patricia Hale —
Jaxan Christensen asks us to “do the math” when deciding who to vote for in the upcoming Presidential election, citing unemployment figures, gas prices and home prices, among other things as evidence of executive mismanagement for the last four years.
Some of us would submit that it was the failure on the part of many people, including ordinary citizens, to do the math that created the very mess we”re still digging our way out of today. Why did so many people succumb to the mass delusion that unsustainable housing prices would just keep going up and up? The Wall Street meltdown (see: credit default swaps) was a cynical and utterly predictable “when,” not “if” catastrophe is waiting to happen and happen it did, the result a deregulatory impulse that was the financial equivalent of getting rid of meat inspectors.
Ms. Christensen compares Mitt Romney to Ward Cleaver, a man who “quietly provided everything needed for the family,” and made hard decisions, putting his plan in place when there were problems. As a political junkie, I have listened to every major speech Mr. Romney has made and I could not tell you what his plan is. If forced to guess, I”d say it”s some variant of trickle-down and deregulation. This is supposed to free up the “job creators” to hire more people, never mind that customers and consumers who can afford to buy an enterprise”s products are the drivers of a vibrant economy and are the true job creators. Of course, if our primary economic activity is going to consist only of moving money around and giving somebody a cut every time its location changes, ignore that last sentence. (And by the way: you guys who are concerned about climate change should feel really, really silly.)
Mr. Romney has put some truly great food on his own family”s table, and his family certainly has nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, I”m still waiting to hear what he”ll do for other families who are struggling, and have plenty to worry about. I guess they all just didn”t try hard enough, didn”t work hard enough, weren”t frugal enough to put aside thirty years worth of living expenses for their own retirements, and didn”t have the insight or the moxie to do whatever it would have taken to become successful venture capitalists.
I have yet to detect a whiff of humility from Mr. Romney, and that”s not just annoying, it”s scary. The problem with comparing someone favorably to Ward Cleaver is that Ward is a fictional character. His well-coiffed wife, June, keeps their lovely home spotless while wearing a dress and a string of pearls in the middle of the day. Who does that? Nobody I know.
Patricia Hale
Kelseyville
