Posted 10 months, 24 days ago in 
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Take off your blinkers, Mr. Grant.
Bill Grant writes that he is poised to toast the beginning of the wonderful world awaiting us under President Obama after the hell he lived through during the Bush administration. Mr. Grant cannot help but cite the usual Democrat misstatements about the current administration. I will only address Mr. Grant’s “solutions” to our economic difficulties.
Mr. Grant ignores the major role Congress played in bringing about the recession; instead, he blames it all on the Bush administration and greedy capitalists. He has convinced himself that Obama will “save capitalism, just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt did in the 1930s,” by placing restrictions on capitalists and instituting policies not friendly to business. Government-sponsored public works, environmental solutions and national health care will save the day.
Many historians now agree that FDR’s policies prolonged the Depression by many years, and that only the country’s entry into World War II put an end to it. Have we learned nothing from history? Are we doomed to repeat failed policies? Capitalism cannot function when the government calls every move. A recent good example is India, where the economy began to improve dramatically when the government quit micromanaging it. Our economy likewise will function only when our government does not insist of being a player in the economy, but limits itself to being a referee. Anything else will only prolong our misery.
CHRISTA TAYLOR
Grand Junction
5 Responses to “Government interference will prolong our agony”
Posted December 31st, 2008 at 6:30 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Unlike the letter writer, I found no misstatements about the Bush administrations in Bill Grants eloquent column about the hope many of us have for the future of our country.
I am one of those who believes that the Bush administration will be remembered as one of the worst in history. The sheer number of felons generated by his White House is staggering and when you add the extraordinary incompetence of so many others that surround him, it is a wonder that we have made it this far.
While I will not excuse the congress, it is important to remember that the principle damage done to our country by this egotistical oaf was accomplished with the complicity of a Republican Congress. The “free market” experiment hasn’t gone as well as Wolfowitz, Phil Gramm, and that group of thieves had anticipated. That’s the problem with a democracy, the pain of the free market experiment cannot be put down with guns and tanks, as is usually the case. Don’t say Bush didn’t try to move us closer to totalitarianism,though. He sure gave it the old college try. Fortunately, the voters have given us a chance to fix things.
Posted December 31st, 2008 at 9:07 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Ms. Taylor may wish to give us the names of those “Many historians…” who now agree that the FDR actions prolonged the pain of the depression. As one who has been an avid student of both American and European history, for many years, what I have found is that there are many “types” of history. And, one of those which we have been inundated with, especially for the last thirty years, I would call shoddy at best, and totally revisionist in nature.
History is like any other subject, if the individual approaches it with pre-conceptions or for the wrong reason, such as to prove a conclusion already reached, that instead of looking for more information and better understanding, and then and only then, reaching a conclusion, that is not at all “studying”, but only gleaning for “facts that fit.”
Posted January 1st, 2009 at 2:56 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Ms. Taylor blithely skips over the fact that Congress was a rubber stamp to the President’s wishes for six of the last eight years and Republicans held the threat of an unstoppable filibuster over Congress on all measures that the President didn’t want during the two years of a Democratic Congress with a tiny majority in the Senate. She also skips over the fact that this presidency has been extremely effective in dismantling government regulations that has been the Republican mantra since Goldwater. There is, indeed, widespread agreement that FDR,under great conservative pressure in 1936, felt that conditions justified going back to deficit cutting, easing regulations and general conservative concepts of governing. That did throw the country back into tough times that only apprecibly eased until the war years. Bringing up this backtracking on what FDR started is a strange indictment of the entirety of FDR’s Depression actions since it proves that, in the conditions existing, conservative tactics were exactly the wrong thing to do. Just as they are today. That’s where FDR screwed up, not all of the other things he was trying that did work from 1933 to 1936. I think Ms. Taylor is the one who hasn’t learned anything from history and comes to the subject with pre-concieved “ideas” picked up solely from far Right commentators as her source for “history”. If she would listen–not likely– she could learn much from Dr. Grant, PhD in US cultural history, which includes the effects of political activities on our country and culture. By the way, all of the things that Bush and cronies are now doing were not mandated by Congress. It’s liberals who do want to “referee” but not run the economy. Ms. Taylor seems very confused on what is happening and why.
Posted January 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
I will never understand the middle class’s support of unbridled capitalism. It does nothing but suppress them to make the wealthy wealthier. I think it’s the “lottery” mentality. “I might be the one in a million to get rich”. When we hear of 25 million dollar golden parachutes, that is the middle class’s money-not Warren Buffett’s. Would Ms Taylor pls explain to me why someone who does not produce anything tangible (Lehman Bros CEO, for instance) gets $25 mil after 3 months, but the plumber, teacher, car mechanic, etc barely make enough to provide for their family. This can be solved by making “minimum wage” a sustainable wage ($25/hr + benefits for example) or by redistribution of wealth thru taxation. For as long as I can remember, the redistribution has been toward the wealthy. It’s time to reverse that trend. Hopefully, help is on the way. The mantra of the capitalist to this is, it will stifle productivity. maybe they won’t start up a business because they won’t make millions, but I suspect some “ordinary” folks will and not require millions in profits to do it.
Posted January 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Skypilot is correct in bringing up the question of why so many so-called “middle class” are so blindly support what is called “unbridled capitalism.” It begins even before “what they want”, and what is meant by the words “middle class”, and that many consider themselves of the economic “middle class” while they are really not. How many people do we know in that category who are one paycheck, or one illness, away from from destitution, yet believe that they are already “middle class.” We all know quite a few if we only bother to look. Such individuals are not “middle class” at all, as they have absolutely no reserves, and are living day to day, or paycheck to paycheck.
The reason that so many so blindly support the mantra of “unbridled capitalism” is that they have absolutely no idea what it really means, neither its real definition, nor in its effects. They have been “sold” a “bill of goods” by those who have the resources required to sell it. And now that they have “bought in”, they are not prepared to abandon it.
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