The Echoes Of Crisis

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"ABOVE ALL THINGS I hope that the EDUCATION of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a DUE degree of liberty." Thomas Jefferson

As a public high school teacher, the current state of our public institutions reflect our values as a society, from my point of view. I ask Newsweek readers to PLEASE consider the following comparison of our institutions: our pubic schools and our private financial "powerhouses" that are now being bailed out with our taxpayer dollars.

We are bailing out these failing institutions with taxpayer dollars while the state of our public school system continues to decline. Think about this, voters PLEASE! Not just for the sake of your own personal interests, but for the sake of our country.

Good teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing. No child left behind is a law that requires improvements without funding to implement these improvements. Schools are listed as "failing schools" (terrible for morale) because of unrealistic goals/unfunded mandates funded by politicians seeking to score political points. What is often "left behind" in our public schools is often a stressed out skeleton staff that does not have the ability to properly educate our students.

Meanwhile, these corporate lobbyists that effectively secured deregulation and what they consider "optimal" conditions for success (deregulation). And a few well-connected people have lined their pockets with enormous amounts of other peoples' money.

John McCain has a record of being a major player and advocate of deregulation and has taken money TIME AFTER TIME from the deregulation lobbyists - the very same "fat cats" he's now criticizing! NOW McCain is calling for change, when his deregulation in part has created this mess?

This sort of short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth way of thinking has infected our entire way of running our society.

Unfortunately, young people (the MAJORITY) of our future do not have the money or the resources to hire corporate lobbyists. Their teachers and their schools have limited resources. And there are little organized efforts to reform and progress/ lead our public schools into the 21st century. In every other developed and developing country we compare our students' progress with, there are sustained efforts to improve, fund, and prioritize education.

In America, we are starving our schools while bailing out reckless fat cats who've thrived on greed. Is this the American Way? Or have we lost our way?

Let this difficult period be a lesson. We all want healthy money markets and retirements. We must see the connection between healthy public schools and a healthy economy that is investing in human capital. Hopefully (as we say in class) we will learn from all of this and use it to improve, grow, and succeed.

DID WE HAVE A RIGHT TO EXPECT ANYTHING ELSE FROM THIS PRESIDENT? Bush had a known track record before he took office of having run into the ground every business he had been involved in, and this was brought out clearly in the elections of 2000. With him at the helm of our countrys economy, he has managed to do the same: homeowners losing their homes, the dollar in the tank abroad, the insurance and banking industries awash in bankruptcies, the price of gasoline at staggering levels, 4 billion dollars a month thrown down the toilet in Iraq, etc. McCain did get it right a while back when he said, ??????to prosecute two wars, while handing out immense tax cuts to the wealthy at the same time, is immoral". But even having said that, McCain has supported Bushs economic blunders 95% of the time! Go figure!

That doesn't make him wrong. The suggestion that the current crisis may not be quite so critical isn't finding much traction these days, but that doesn't make it false

You obviously have no idea what the real deal is in this situation...due to leverage of at least 40 times the real "value" of assets, this financial debacle will cause the world to lose no less than 100 trillion dollars.
Listen close...I know because I'm an insider and the reason for this is because the ORIGINAL LOANS were FAKE...that means banks didn't leverage 40/1, they leveraged 40/0. That means on a 250 k loan with 250k in accrued interest over 30 years, with 5 million foreclosures levered 40 times, the amout on RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE LOSSES ALONE IS 100 TRILLION USD....that doesn't include ANY other type of debt.

MOST ARE WORTHLESS, you are dead wrong...if you want to hang someone, go to Calabassas California and start with Ameriquest and Countrywide Financial....

Do some math and you will have a stroke at the figures coming up on your calculator. It is over for the US and most likely for the world.