Are Our Politicians "Gaming The Economy"?

Watching the political wrangling going on in Washington right now over the "fiscal cliff", it makes one wonder whether or not our politicians are "gaming the market". After all, they know that if they let the nation go over the fiscal cliff, that stocks will plunge...they could then buy up blocks of stock cheaply, turn around and retroactively pass legislation to patch up the economy and watch as the stocks they bought so cheaply rise quickly in answer to the passed legislation.

Am I just being cynical? Maybe, then again, it seems that our politicians are some of those wealthiest Americans that could afford to do something like this, and want to be protected from higher taxes to boot! When politicians only have to make vague hints and allegations that can cause the stock market to fluctuate wildly, it seems like it would be all too tempting to use those comments to make yourself some easy money!

Prepare To Take A Swan Dive!

     Thanks to politics as usual, it looks as if the economy is going over the fiscal cliff with weights tied to it's ankles! I've been reading the news daily over  the past couple of weeks, and it's been the same story day after day. Republicans claim the Democrats will have to save the economy, knowing full well they'll block any attempt at passing something. Democrats saying that Republicans are sitting back and doing nothing to stop an inevitable calamity.

     Both parties are to blame for where we're at right now, and it's the system that keeps anything substantial from being done to fix it. The problem is all those politicians afraid to do anything because they're too worried they won't be re-elected if enough of their constituents aren't happy with them. I don't think anyone is going to be happy if we end up in a double-dip recession! Is this going to be what it takes to start a revolution in this country in which heads will be put up on spikes? Don't think it couldn't happen here, it has before. What do you think encouraged those colonists a couple hundred years ago to overthrow their "rightful" government and form a new country?!

     This could end up being our "winter of discontent" in which the American people finally have had enough and rise up in open revolt against the Federal government. The problem is, it's exceedingly unlikely that we'd end up with anything better than we have at the moment. Look at some of the nations around the world the last few years that have over-turned their governments, I don't see any of them becoming stable, peaceful countries that you'd want to go vacationing in!

Playing Chicken With The Economy...

LINK to the story

That's certainly what it seems is happening right now, President Obama and the GOP are playing chicken with the economy, seeing which one of them is willing to flinch first and jump away from the fiscal cliff! Both parties, (i.e. Democrats & Republicans), need to be seriously discussing what to do about the looming fiscal cliff, or they're going to be arguing with each other as we all go cascading over it to wind up in a messy pile at the bottom.

The problem is, I tend to agree with the President that it's the GOP that needs to buckle since the Republicans have fared so badly in the last election and they're only trying to protect their wealthy backers from paying more in taxes. You know, those same wealthy backers like the owners of Hostess who just sacked 19,000 U.S. employees because they didn't want to give them better benefits and wage increases, although they saw nothing wrong with giving themselves huge bonuses. The GOP and "big business", who, let's face it, are the GOP, need to remember that the backbone of this country are the lower and middle classes, and if you don't have a firm, healthy backbone, you don't have anything!