Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Bush's Iraq War is costing billions every month.  The polls taken in Iraq have repeatedly shown more than 70 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. occupying forces to go.  And, significantly the U.S. built the largest U.S. Embassy in the world in Iraq.  No wonder Bush frantically tries to get Iraq to sign agreements to extend the U.S. occupation.

Lest we forget, the U.S. is still trying to get Iraqis to agree to sign a long term lease for 63 of Iraq's 80 oil wells, leaving Iraq in control of 17 wells containing their biggest asset -- oil.

If the Iraq War could be investigated by the World Court at The Hague, those responsible could be held accountable.

With the U.S. national debt skyrocketing ever closer to $10 trillion, historians should ask why U.S. citizens never demanded impeachment and accountability.

Now that U.S. taxpayers see the economic collapse of Wall Street's oldest economic giants, they might forget the scores of their favorite sports teams and TV shows long enough to calculate how much every U.S. citizen owes the government since many citizens have lost their jobs as a result of this tragic downturn spiral.

In A Seattle Times September 16 article by David Lightman of the McClatchy Newspapers, the economic meltdown is explained vividly:

"Ronald Reagan led a movement that came to power in 1980 proclaiming faith in free markets and mistrust of government.  That conservative philosophy has dominated America for the past 28 years.

"Even after taxpayers had to rescue deregulated savings and loans, or S&Ls, with a $200 billion bailout in the late 1980s, the push to loosen regulation paused only briefly.

"In 1999, President Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act (also known as the Gramm-Leah-Bailey Act), which tore down Glass-Steagall's reforms by removing the walls separating banks, securities firms and insurers.

"Interest rates were low, the market grew for loans to borrowers with weak credit and private sector mortgage bonds boomed.  About 38 percent of those bonds were backed by subprime loans.  They are at the root of today's financial crisis.

"Loans to the least creditworthy borrowers carried the highest returns, so banks and other institutional investors bought loads of them.  Except no one was policing the creditworthiness of the borrowers."