Monday, April 14, 2008

You can't blame the environmentalists for everything.

Before I get into the latest Thomas Sowell republished editorial, here is a run down of a Tom Tomorrow cartoon that regularly appears in the Pacific Northwest Inlander. This Modern World depicts: Experts from 1999 to 2006 talking up the housing market. Then the housing market begins to show signs of the bubble bursting by 2007 and the "experts" by 2008 are not only changing their tune the moment the housing crisis looms, but also distancing themselves from past statements that puts your home in the same league as that piece of plastic that you carry in your pocket.

Now onto the Thomas Sowell commentary, what it is that the Republicans are not doing to win over African-Americans. In short, the GOP wants to behave, so Sowell accuses them, of being or wanting to be too much like the Democrats and hand African-Americans a bunch of gvt provided goodies. Well, he may have something to say on that which would be very much to the point. Problem is, Mr. Sowell then goes on to blame the environmentalists for the housing market crisis that squeezed out black people from owning their own homes in San Francisco, for example. Anyone following the history of the real estate market, just how much Republican ideological economists inclusive of Greenspan talked up you house as "equity" as long as the market values rose, so would the house become a substitute credit card. As long as some people were prepared to pay the big bucks for property that once sold more cheaply, then property values would rise as well. So much so that it isn't just African-Americans in sunny California that get squeezed out of the housing market but also, people making barely 8 or 9 bucks an hour could not hope to own a home let alone actually rent. That's anywhere, even in Idaho. Interesting how Sowell could cry Crocodile tears over the plight of his fellow African-Americans as long as he can use them as a wedge issue against his favorite strawman. The "left coast" of California.

However, Sowell is an economist. At least that is supposed to be his specialty that he got some kind of doctorate for. An economist, you would think, would know something about the marketplace, its pitfalls and successes. Instead of Sowell discussing his specialty, however, he goes into long political rants. The environmentalist boogeyman did it. Not homeowners' greed, not the greed of lenders or of the real estate industry in general. Tom Tomorrow is a relevant opposition editorial as a graphic cartoon to Sowell's republished to the Spokesman-Review.

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" was exceptionally funny today. I stopped writing to this post long enough to watch it. Of course, Jon Stewart picked up on the Senator Clinton flap regarding Senator Barack Obama's comments at a closed fund-raising in San Francisco. When he wasn't making fun of Senator Clinton chug-a-lugging beer and shots of Whiskey, he was showing clips of various news organizations lining up behind Senator Clinton's outraged cries of "elitist" directed at Senator Obama and clamored like a bunch of lemmings headed toward a cliff with their own squeaks of "elitist...," "elitist..." I have to expect that CNN is no longer the only 24/7 news channel who hates the idea that a black man could be president. So, while I can't hope to quote Jon Stewart's funniest line about his take on "elitist." It was most apropos of why Senator Clinton made herself a total ass on the campaign trail. His comment had to do with what "elitism" meant. After all, people who ran for the highest office in the land, Stewart basically opined, that they had to be good, even superior. That if all went well in their administrations, they would even get their heads carved out of stone on some mountain top. If there wasn't something "elitist" about being president, what the #^$& did they think they were doing? Now that is something that politicians running for office ought to hang as an engraved sign on the doors of their campaign offices. If they weren't an "elite" why would we bother to vote for them? So it begs the question as to who has become the new proletariat that can not suffer the presence of those who represent them in office.

3 comments:

Kendra said...

Hi Joan-
I know this isn't relative to your post, but I didn't know your email, and I saw your request regarding help in posting photos.
The only way I learned HTML tags, links, posting photos, etc., was when ThomG emailed me Dan Gookin's Guide to HTML. It was a great help, although I'm not quite so sure about the author! If you email me at kendramama@gmail.com, I will send it to you.
Anyway, you already know about the Picasa thing- so as far as a quick format for posting photos from your hosting site, just right-click on the pic, choose "copy image location", then in the comments section (or wherever you're posting it) inside of the greater than and less than signs, write IMG SRC="blahblahblahimagelocation" and yes, the quotes are included.
(it won't actually let me write that inside the "<" and ">" -I tried; this is my second attempt)
So I hope I didn't do too lousy of a job explaining that. Obviously you already pretty much know what you're doing, so I hope I didn't over-explain.
Another thing that's good to do, is after your image location (inside the double quotes) put WIDTH=300
then end with your greater-than symbol. (>) That way, your photo doesn't end up too gigantic, or too small. The height will automatically adjust.
Well, I'm off to bed. Hope this helps.

Kendra said...

Okay, I just reread my post, and since I can't edit it, let me re-explain what I was trying to say about the WIDTH=300 thing.
That doesn't go inside the double quotes- only your pasted image location does.
Whew! I can tell it's past my bedtime.... :-)

The New Arch Druid's take on the news said...

I think I can do better than that. I have "Hello" and I am going to invite you. But, I think I can write down quickly what you posted and deeply appreciated what you sent along. LOL! We may not always agree but I am in the rookie class when it comes to html coding yet. :) My sister had to guide me on how to paste a pic to Notepad+ before it would translate properly onto the browser, using Firefox. I'll get your info written down and hopefully I won't get it muddled. I really wanted you guys to see a tree on my street that got blasted by the tornado we had last year.