Asia Times: RE Stimulus - America is "Like a drunk in a bar ordering another round "

[El Pinko]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JB13Dj04.html

Physician heal thyself
By Julian Delasantellis

Deep in the middle of another US Presidential campaign, and the air is muddy thick with the pieties and promises of politics. Since it is self-evident that the blood of the D-Day heroes who scaled the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc still flows freely through all 300 million current-day Americans, the country’s politicians are well justified in promising the voters the absolute maximum amount of focus-group-vetted government services to be paid for with the absolute minimum of taxes.

But, if Americans ever choose to expose themselves to some foreign voices and views (which they rarely do - for most local American news broadcasts, coverage of train crashes and the displays of 10,000 dominoes set up for a chain reaction just about does it for their overseas news coverage), they will see that some very-informed observers are looking at the country’s response to the economic slowdown generated by the subprime mortgage crisis very differently than do many Americans.

To sum up these views, here America is being seen as the wimps of the world, like little boys hiding under a pediatrician's desk so as to not to have to suffer an inoculation shot.

....

Like a drunk in a bar ordering another round because he’s heard that, since a glass of red wine a day has some purported health benefits, it’s logical to assume that a whole bottle of 120-proof Scotch must have even more, the Congress heard this wisdom, raised a glass to the fine Dr Summers, toasting, "I’ll drink to that". Summers' prescription was for a stimulus package in the neighborhood of $50-75 billion; if the drunk stumbling out of the bar gets stopped by the authorities and is discovered to have a blood alcohol reading three times the legal limit, well, he, as well as the Congress, can always claim that he just got caught up in the overall heady intoxicating spirit of the procedure.

[bdamomma]

1. very appropriate we do have a drunk giving out checks.

[predfan]

2. This is all about the stock market..........

if our so-called leaders don't point out that if this money isn't spent with American businesses on American made products, it's just another debt we owe our grandchildren.

[asthmaticeog]

3. "Since it is self-evident...

...that the blood of the D-Day heroes who scaled the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc still flows freely through all 300 million current-day Americans..."

:rofl:

Great line! Perfect slapdown of the idiot hubris of unjustifiably prideful 'Murkuns. :thumbsup:

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Cheers." - Commander AWOL

"Oh, and barkeep, put that on the tab of the little people* and their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would you. Smirk. We republicons are (smirk) 'conservatives' and we don't pay for anything, or accept responsibility for anything, ourselves. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL



* Little People, also known as proles, formerly known as citizens of the United States of America