Stefanie wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
It could be totally avoidable, but just wait. When the health care system in this country implodes (and it will), and you have dead bodies piling up in the streets, I think this will all be a quaint notion. As I've said, the finance disaster is just a dress rehearsal for the health care and social security meltdowns.

For clarity's sake, are you suggesting that government has done too much, or not enough, in those areas?

The analogy I've been using is that we have a long term problem (that we've waited to long to fix) with short term issues. So our roof is leaking really badly, but we need to renovate the entire house to shore it up or risk losing the entire thing. Gotta fix the leak right now, but gotta do it in a way that allows us to do the entire renovation. With a tight budget.

In a pragmatic sense, that means leveling with the public that we're not all going to get what we want or expect. Sorry honey, but granite counter tops are too expensive. I don't care what you had growing up.

Hard choices need to be made. But the trade off for that is that we're going to put in a system where the long term benefits will be real and felt for generations to come. Instead, what we've done with the financial crisis is allow the future to be robbed to try and keep the walking dead on life support.

At some point, you don't get a second chance because you've blown the budget and not only has the roof leaked, but the entire foundation has crumbled. We're not far off from that, IMO.

RE: Looting AIG