the whole in the donut

Or is it supposed to be the "hole" in the donut, aren't we just trying to make the donut whole? Isn't that what all the pols keep talking about with social security? The simple fix would be to take the cap off income, but I guess that is too simple and too much for those beholden to those who make more than $100,000 for whom contributions are capped. Whatever (I guess that is the most annoying phrase). We need to fix this problem. We can't keep making people work longer and longer because employers, despite anti-discrimination laws, won't hire them and find pretexts for firing older workers. We're not going to cut benefits because the benefit amount being paid barely covers anyone's expenses, must less including long-term care insurance, medicare deductibles, or prescription deductibles, including the hole in that donut.

We need also to be able to re-import drugs from Canada, and the government should be able to negotiate prices with the pharma companies - duuuuuuh. How stupid is it that we can't negotiate those prices, especially for cardiac, cancer, diabetes, asthma and other chronic and pervasive conditions and diseases.

Common sense, good business sense, but bad politics.

Not too big to break up

Don't we all just get sick and tired of hearing that phrase, "too big to fail." Well, those entities are not too big to break up, just the government did to banks, to standard oil, to AT&T, to the railroads etc. It is called anti-trust" to prevent monopolies, to stop corporations from manipulating our economy for their benefit, and harming the public good.

Well, it's time to start breaking up these banks and financial services companies that are "too big to fail," pull then apart and sell off the pieces. Look at what happened to the telephone industry when ATT's monopoly was dismantled? Our cell phones and computers and the modern age of communication. That is how it should be with banking and financial services. The more consolidation, the less competition there will be and we will all be hurt by it. It will breed more conflicts that can't be avoided in major transactions, and more corruption in the system.

Unfortunately, as Michael Moore rightfully points out in his new movie "Capitalism - a love story", our treasury department is being run by Goldman Sachs and its progeny, not people who are concerned about us little folk, just the titans of Wall Street and their friends, as it has been for 30 years, and the gap between rich and poor in this country keeps growing, until we will soon represent a 2d or 3d world country, back to where we were before FDR. Not too big on conspiracy theories but makes me wonder, isn't that the plan in certain parties and groups, to undo the New Deal?

Anti-trust, because we can't trust the powers that be to do the right thing.

Bottoms up

Most of the time we think of this as a drinking term. Get to the bottom of the glass, fast. But isn't there we almost are economically right now. Increasingly, I see it just driving, on the local roads, on the highways, coming in and out of NYC, less and less traffic, almost shocking the difference now versus a few years ago when the economy was humming and we were all rushing to go places, get to work, spend our money before we even earned it.

Bottoms up - also maybe the way we should have fixed the economy. What if, instead of bailing out the banks and financial institutions, who add nothing to our productivity, who produce nothing, who manufacture nothing, just take from all of us, what if we bailed out us little people who pay our taxes who work and struggle to survive? I kept thinking this last summer when the economy began to tank and we began bailing out the AIGs of the world, rewarding failure. It made little sense to me, despite the pleas of Krugman and other economists who explained this had to be done. I kept wondering, why not give the money to us - requiring us to pay our mortgages with it, our credit card bills, our car loans. Wouldn't then the banks be instantly solvent without toxic assets on the books? Wouldn't then our houses would have kept value and we would still be in them? Wouldn't then we would have more money to spend on stuff to keep the economy humming? We could all then afford to pay our taxes? But maybe this is just too simple an idea.

Keep it simple stupid.