Your donations make In These Times affordable for all readers, including students and readers with low incomes. Please donate today.

Twilight of the Market’s Idols

Not Larry Craig, but George Bush and his careless economic policies, have left the Republican party cornered in a bathroom stall

By Susan J. Douglas

As I write this, Republicans, nearly deranged by their own homophobia, have succeeded in ousting Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) because he made some odd foot and hand movements in an airport men’s room. But the person they should be going after, and not just because of the quagmire in Iraq, is Bush, a bigger disaster for the Republican Party than… return to article

  • subscribe to print magazine

  • Zoom OutZoom In Reader Comments (5)

    Page 1 of 1 pages

    Susan,

    Either stay with the motherhood topic (or perhaps there is something other area in which you have knowledge), but avoid economics unless you take time to study it more.

    The economic mess the U.S. is in is the product of decades of inept and misleading financial reporting. Many administrations and mostly Democratic congresses were participants and advocates.

    Greenspan served the purposes of three administratiions with his disembling and vocal fog.

    If ever there has been a category of bipartisanship the making and manipulating of money is it.

    Bush is as much a Republican as Clinton was a Democrat. Both are first and foremost interested in their own well being.

    Harry Truman was probably the last U.S. President who was true to his party, totally honest and loyal to his word and did not profit financially from the office to which he brought integrity annd left with it intact.

    United States Posted by whattheheck on Sep 18, 2007 at 12:29 PM

    I think Susan has put it rather well. This adminsistration has managed to ‘debase’ the $US, all without any help from the ‘reds under the beds’. The ‘free market’ is an ideological abstraction that obscures more thn ait illuminates, and left unchecked, will kill the very thing it is supposed to underpin-capitlaism. In the US the situation is absolutely gobsmacking to anyone living abroad. The ‘reserve currency’ so important to the prestige of the US abroad, is slowly deflating, and risking a turn to the Euro by holders of $US, meaning most of south east Asia. When and if that happens, the US working class will really get to know just how much ghe Land of the brave and Free really feels about democracy.

    Australia Posted by Jane Doe on Sep 24, 2007 at 1:34 AM

    Go back to your hole, rabbit.  ;-)

    United States Posted by whattheheck on Sep 24, 2007 at 5:36 PM

    Who hooo! Rabbit eh? Get a grip! BTW, what’s your prediction for the amount of time the Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans will be content to see their foreign reservs slowly deflate in value as the US palms off its debt to the rest of the world, onto those countries, full of hard working people whose efforts permit US citizens to consume beyond their means?

    How long do you think the rest of he world will be happy to hang around while the US threatens to bomb the crap out of anybi\ody that doesn’t accept their particular nostrums for the ideal way of life?

    Oh and BTW, when are you guys going to start exporting freedom and democracy to Burma? I mean if ever there was a case for demcoracy denied it is that sad counry. I guess thouhg when you don’t have oil, you don’t count.

    Australia Posted by Jane Doe on Sep 24, 2007 at 7:36 PM

    Hi again, Hippity,

    Sorry —You won’t get any argument from me on the stupid economic policies of the U.S.  I have been concerned for decades.

    This is going to affect the global economy in a big way. As spendthrift U.S. consumers run out of credit sources the world will need to sell to people perhaps less willing to blow their pay and mortgage their futures.

    It will be interesting to see if greed continues to be the universal language and simply migrates.

    --------------

    BTW — How long could you do without oil down there?

    I expect if things get really tight on supply it willl be much easier to get a coalition of “the willing” to go to war over it.

    International cooperation behind the scenes is a better way to handle wacky religious murderers. Let’s hope for more of that approach.

    United States Posted by whattheheck on Sep 25, 2007 at 7:19 AM
    Page 1 of 1 pages
  • register a new account »Posting Security

    To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.
Popular Discussions