Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

To bring an end to Clinton impeachment hypocrisy hysteria, wheel chair bound pornographer Larry Flynt hired detectives, who did some research on some of these congressional moral guardians.

One leading Clinton critic, Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, was revealed as having had an extra-marital affair that destroyed the union of the woman.  Congressman Bob Livingston of Louisiana had also been involved in an extra-marital affair.  Livingston was another of the major cogs pushing impeachment against Clinton.

Then Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia took honors for top hypocrite, however, when he admitted later that he was carrying on an extra-marital affair at the same time he was seeking Clinton's removal from office for lying on an affidavit in a civil action about his dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

This was the same Gingrich who announced the end of his marriage to his first wife as she was recovering in the hospital from a cancer operation.

Republicans seek to repeatedly focus on John McCain's prisoner of war status as American heroism.  They do not focus on one personal matter that is anything but heroic.  

When McCain's first wife became disabled after a tragic auto accident he announced that he was divorcing her.  He then married a much younger woman who was heir to a $100 million beer distribution fortune.

Could this marital link to a vast fortune be responsible for the illusion that McCain expressed when he declared that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were sound?

With 7 homes and 13 cars, McCain's personal economic situation was indeed fundamentally strong.  And he was inclined to help others of wealth by voting for tax breaks for oil companies.

The oil companies of the U.S.A. are wallowing in wealth.  Gas, when Bush began his ruinous White House residency, was $1.30 a gallon for regular.  Now it is $4 and in some areas of the U.S. $5 a gallon.  

Some families can't afford the monthly gas bill to get to and from work.

The gas price bonanza has hit airlines, that have cut many flights and laid off over 50,000 employees.

Food prices skyrocket as transportation costs to transport food rise weekly.

When the world trade bill was signed by Bill Clinton, we were told it would make the U.S. economy boom.  Instead, U.S. businesses moved, in some cases entire manufacturing plants to foreign locales, where labor was cheap and union safety laws and wages weren't in place.

One of the few remaining industries was the housing industry.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac leadership encourage home buying even when granting many mortgages was a highly risky proposition.

Alan Greenspan lowered the interest rate to a 40-year low.  Developers had a bonanza -- cheap cash created by destroying the value of the U.S. dollar.  This made exports boom as hotels filled up.  Europeans had the Euro, which was 40% and eventually 50% higher than the devalued dollar.  The British pound was more than twice as valuable as the U.S. dollar.

The British and Europeans and Middle East oil barons began buying up U.S. real estate.  The emirate of Dubai purchased 90% of the famous Chrysler Building in New York City.

The cost of homes skyrocketed.  These often risky mortgages were packaged and sold to scores of U.S. financial institutions.  They were sent to Wall Street to bundle up in packages called mortgage securities.  Of course, they were anything but secure.

When these contracts required paying the principal along with interest, the real estate bubble burst.

Washington Mutual, one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the U.S., had built its huge sales of mortgages by granting loans to scores of home buyers who were risky.  They then defaulted on these accurately labeled sub prime loans.

Shearson Lehman, a 158 year old investment house, folded last week.  

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson has agreed to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants responsible for more than 50% of U.S. home mortgages.  The cost of this bailout is $100 to $200 billion.

With a melt down of so many banks, Paulson has requested $700 billion to save the U.S. banking system, seeking the money immediately and with no controls over his decisions.

When Paulson headed Goldman-Sachs in New York City he made $40 million a year.  

The former head of UnitedHealth Group was allowed to retain $800 million in stock options after reaching a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Exxon-Mobil's CEO exited with a golden parachute of almost $400 million.

Carly Fiorina was a leading financial adviser to John McCain before she got into hot water by saying that neither he nor Sarah Palin, were qualified to lead the corporation she once headed, Hewlett-Packard.  When Fiorina was terminated her payout came to $45 million with some $21 million of the package coming in the form of a golden parachute.

Not since the French revolution has any nation had such a gap between the rich and the poor.  

This election boils down to this vital question:

Do you want this horrifying gap between rich and poor to widen?