Drive east on the I-90 from Seattle, over the Snoqualmie Pass, head north after Cle Elum, and take a left up the Teanaway River Road. Mount Stuart (pictured), Ingalls Peak, and Ingalls Lake are spectacular, as are the views south toward Rainier and Adams, and north up the Cascades to Glacier.
Spent Saturday in the Alpine Lake Wilderness, making the most of a beautiful late-summer weekend in western Washington. Nothing like majestic mountain vistas and working up a good sweat to take one’s mind off politics and the economy.
The hyperbole and lies generated by the Obama-Biden McCain-Palin roadshow have become quite tiresome, but the current economy woes are like a bad wreck that I just can’t take my eyes off.
I had suspected that the ‘bailout’ (apparently now the correct term is ‘rescue’) bill wouldn’t be passed but was still fascinated to see the president and administration abandoned by the majority of Republicans in the House, who have apparently been receiving approximately 200 calls from their constituents opposing the bill for every 1 call in support.
The outcry is understandable. How can a taxpayer who has wisely chosen to rent rather than own, put aside some savings every month, avoided reliance on a credit card, bypassed the house-flipping trend, and does not own a boat, accept that their money is going to be used to help corporations and individuals who took excessive risks (and in many cases reaped the rewards) or simply lived ridiculously beyond their means? But then – should the government not intervene – is the country (and world) prepared to deal with the consequences which are already coming into play? A tough dilemma, and some stringent debate underway.
As a good capitalist, I’m horribly confused about which way I fall. It sounds like there are alternatives, if the bill doesn’t pass through on its second attempt tomorrow. Either way, this is quite some mess for the roadshow winner to take over once all the votes have been counted.
It’s an interesting time to be living in the USA, that’s for sure.
Filed under: Bungy jumping?, Jamie Finnigan | Tagged: economy politics USA
Hey Jamie, good to read your blog. I was going to post something several weeks ago but my laptop has died, and now I am left just with internet access at work!
Only in America would the public be so strongly against Government intervention in the economy, which is ironic given that it is arguably a lack of Government intervention (i.e. a lack of regulations etc) that caused the problem in the first place. You would have heard about the £500 billion bail-out here in the UK, which is about £17,000 per tax payer. Things could be worse however, in Iceland apparently the figure is up at about £116,000 per person! Here I think most people see the bail-out as painful and frustrating yet necessary, because at the end of the day a recession will affect not just corporations and a few greedy individuals, but us all. I’m interested to know who you would vote for over there?
Look forward to your next blog :)
Have to agree with Steve; it’s swallowing the devil’s pill, so to speak.
The capitalist framework requires money to flow. Because the banks were going under, money stopped flowing, people stopped trusting banks, and every single bank account in a trusted institution was put at risk.
What would you have done if a bank your account was in went under? You’d lose your money. That’s one of the reasons why Gordon Brown spearheaded the largest loans ever seen to the finance industry. Love it or hate it, our fate is entwined in theirs.