I rather appreciate(d) Charles Goyette's comments on the--what he termed--"so-called" Presidential Debates yesterday:
Maybe Tuesday night’s presidential debate wasn’t a game-changer, but at least Republican nominee Mitt Romney didn’t get to debate Clint Eastwood’s empty chair.I'll buy that.
President Barack Obama showed up this time instead.
And while two candidates in a debate are better than one, three candidates would be a big improvement. That way, someone could hold the Republicans and Democrats accountable for generations of vote-buying and deficit spending.
The last time that happened was in 1992 when Ross Perot was the third candidate in the debates. Perot responded to attacks on his experience by saying, “They’re right. I don’t have any experience running up a $4 trillion debt.”
“It’s not the Republicans’ fault,” said Perot of the incipient debt crisis. “And it’s not the Democrats’ fault. What I’m looking for is, who did it?”
This year’s second presidential debate was a tasty little treat for the media people, who love a good comeback story.
But for more serious people, those who understand America will be shaken to its core by economic calamity, the debates are like junk food meals of empty calories.
What About the Fed?
Once again, there was not a word about the Federal Reserve, and not a word about QE III.
This is a most-peculiar oversight.
It’s like Perot’s description of the crazy aunt kept down in the basement. “All the neighbors know she’s there, but nobody wants to talk about her.”
The country is mired in an economic malaise, and both candidates wish to be seen as holding the keys to our recovery. But neither candidate uttered a word about monetary conditions or the monetary authorities.
Since money is half of every commercial transaction, the failure to address the subject is more than a casual oversight. It means that there is a taboo against addressing 50% of the nation’s economic activity.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from this studious avoidance of monetary policy is that, regardless of the election’s outcome, the fundamental policies that boom and bust the economy will still be decided by the Federal Reserve on behalf of the banking cartel.
So-Called Debates Yield So-Called Solutions
I watched the debate remembering the words of Ron Paul this week, when he suggested that our future could hold results more-severe than what we’ve seen in the streets of Greece.
That’s why, Congressman Paul says, he gets so annoyed with “the so-called debates” that are going on now. . . .
“How often have you heard in the last couple of weeks or couple of months of the campaign about the seriousness of the debt and the debt crisis, the dollar crisis, the financial crisis?” [Paul asked.]
“We’re at the end of the line when it comes to debt. When the markets recognize this, we won’t be able to print money to get out of it.”
In the 1992 debates, Perot said that “giant sucking sound you hear” is jobs leaving this country. Today we have Depression-era levels of unemployment and our manufacturing base has been hollowed out.
Back then Perot was the only one of the candidates to address the nation’s growing debt seriously. “The facts are,” he said, “we have to fix it.”
Still Broke . . .
That was 20 years ago. Nothing has been fixed.
Twenty years ago, Perot concluded that, since the Republicans and Democrats were both shirking and disclaiming responsibility for the nation’s debt, it must all have been the doing of extra-terrestrials.
Must be. The debt has quadrupled since then and nobody else has been in charge except Republicans and Democrats.
Clearly, we need a third man in the debates again. I nominate Ron Paul.
