But still, no Recession? by gimleteye

The United States, lead for the last eight years by a Republican White House, is in the midst of the biggest intervention in private markets since the Great Depression. The Bush White House has committed a trillion or more dollars to bailing out financial institutions. Between the wars and the economic "rescue" we are doubling our national debt.

AP reports, "President Bush on Tuesday announced a $250 billion plan by the government to directly buy shares in the nation's leading banks, saying the drastic steps were "not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it."

So: are we in a recession or not? Why aren't we getting the truth?

Because the Karl Rove plan and the Frank Luntz plan and the Republican consultant plans all point out that you can't tell the American people the truth. You can't use the "R" word because that would "frighten" people and connote negativity, as if the breathtaking volatility of financial markets plummeting faster than ever recorded wasn't enough of an indicator.

Today former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker-- the last honest Fed chairman-- said the nation was in a recession and it made headlines. But go and google "Bernanke" and "recession" and "congressional testimony": what you will find is that Fed Chief Bernanke has never said we are in a recession.

Bernanke and President Bush have only committed a trillion plus dollars and agreed to hand the keys over to Secretary Treasury Paulson and his insiders because of a "possible" recession.

Possible? That's some straight talk express.

American voters are fed up with the rules of the pretend reality Karl Rove invented from the ashes of Lee Atwater and still operating the John McCain campaign. A business executive wrote to me about a Rove speech he recently attended: "His speech was irrelevant, puerile, absurd. These guys are flying with no gyroscope in a parallel universe." That's from a Republican.

In 2000 the US Supreme Court selected a president most notable for his incuriousity, who partied his way through college. In 2008, Republicans selected a candidate, John McCain, who came in fifth from the bottom of his class; 894th out of 899 graduates.

It is time we stopped electing presidents we would like to drink a beer with and found a candidate intelligent enough to tell us exactly how deep this hole is, draining the value and security of our savings.