Inaguration Day

Wow, I have been watching a little tv (with no sound) and am amazed at the number of people who were on The Mall at 5 am. Being in DC area, I've elected to stay home and not get caught up in the crowds and I can work from home easily.

I have also seen come of the one line comments on MSN sent in by various people. There is a lot of hope out there, and that is good, but I too wonder how much pressure is being put on one person to solve all the problems we've got. Somehow I think that many new members of this administration are going to feel a cold slap in the face within the next few weeks when they find out exactly how much they can not get accomplished. I remember when Clinton ran and started. Health care reform was right up there on the top of the list. What no one took into account was that not only does congress/senate get a say in what passes, but the drug companies and insurance companies are not going to want chang eand you can bet your bippy they will be lobbying congress to NOT pass anyting that will cut their costs. Why you might ask when it will be so good for the people? Because it cuts into their profits and their stockholders won't like that.

Should I even get started on the banks? Wow, they needed money to "help the economy and those in need" Hrumph. I sure haven't seen any help. Now they want more. There are 3 million tax payers in this country. The Government should give each legitimate law abiding tax payer 1 million dollars. That would still leave a bit left in the coffer so to speak. And yes, I'm sure that a majority of the receipients would go right out and spend that money on cars, houses, vacations, etc. but wouldn't that stimulate the economy? Why doesn't "the government" tell the banks okay, we'll give you this much money, you wipe out these credit card debts and close the accounts so that the people who were in trouble to begin with have a harder time getting another credit card. Yes, that lets a lot of poor money managers off the hook, but hey, isn't the government letting banks off the hook by giving the more money when they sure made bad decisions letting people run up credit cards they couldn't repay and buy houses and cars they couldn't afford?

I hear how the new president is going to make everything better. It wasn't the old president's fault (and I am certainly not one of his fans) but nevertheless, he didn't cause the stockmarket to fall. He didn't cause the banks to make poor decisions. He didn't allow crooked executives and didn't approve the high obscene kickbacks/benefits that the heads of large companies make. The stockholders control that. Deregulation caused that and plain old greed. The rich will stay rich, the poor will stay poor and those of us caught in the middle will continue to struggle helping the rich stay rich and feeding the poor with our tax dollars.

I am on a spending diet for awhile and will wait to see what the next 100 days brings. I have hope, but am not trusting that anything will change and I fear a lot of americans are in for a big let down.