OK - W broke the Economy. How do we fix it?

[Taverner]

Short of nationalizing everything and then declaring ourselves a socialist state?

[gateley]

1. I would begin by not having the people who contributed to this mess be in charge

of 'fixing' it.

[dkofos]

2. That works for me.

[Metta]

3. Put him and his minions in jail until we do.

... seems appropriate.

[Deep13]

4. end the war nt

[jimshoes]

5. Not just the economy,

he broke the whole United States of America. We start fixing it when the main problem is gone. January 21, 2009. But hoo boy, then it gets interesting.

[ieoeja]

6. First off, W didn't break the economy.

Reagan broke it. And nobody bothered fixing it since. Even during the Clinton era the collapse was continuing.

Anywhere people are making money, business will flourish. However, the reverse is not always true. In fact, just about every third world dictatorship around the world has followed the Reaganomic model for their entire existence. And that is why they are still only third world dictatorships.

[Pale Blue Dot]

7. The truth is - and I know people (understandably) don't want to hear it -

there is nothing we can do. It's too late, and we're in way too deep. We are in way too much debt, jobs are being lost, which means people aren't spending, so more jobs are being lost, and on and on and on. School budgets are being cut, people can't afford to go to college, and colleges don't have money to give. Federal, state and local governments don't have the money for jobs programs - and even if they could raise it, it would only be through more debt, exasperating the problem (not to mention that no one seems to want to lend to state and local governments anymore). There is no mechanism in place (or anywhere on the horizon) to replace these jobs or pay back what we owe.

That's why I say this is only going to get much, much worse.

[Cleita]

8. I wouldn't mind seizing the assets of the people who brought us this horror film,

like the Bush family, the Cheneys and all the think tank members of PNAC, the Heritage Foundation, the Mellon-Schiafe people, etc. etc. until we have investigations and trials to determine what money is legitimately theirs and what was stolen from the taxpayers' Treasury. I know I will be ice skating in hell with pigs flying around before that happens but I like to think about it. Back in the old days when crooked politicians and bureaucrats in other countries were toppled, all their assets were seized. It's just that a new bunch of crooks arose to take over the lucre and the power. We need a fail safe system so this doesn't happen.

[eleny]

9. There are some Republican messes that even Dems can't fix

Not without a whole lot of hurt.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Pull out of Iraq and cut defence spending.

The most pressing reason to pull out of Iraq isn't blood (in the short term, the situation there will probably get worse when the US leaves), it's treasure.

[angrycarpenter]

11. We need to change our mindset

from "me" to "us".