Nor can an economy recover when Conservatives have, successfully, engineered the greatest transfer of wealth from the Middle Class to the 1% in American history.

Nor can an economy recover when the Conservatives work day and night for the express purpose of destroying the middle class (2/3 of the "economy")
(Minimum wage, food stamps, health care)

The fact that the 1% have never been better off, and, that Corporate profits have reached record levels, while the middle class struggles just to survive, is proof positive that doing the bidding of their 1% Masters has  been very successful for the Conservatives.

The economy would recover overnight if Conservatives would only adopt a policy of fairness, morality, and, just plain decency.

After 1964 our birth rate plummeted somewhat sharply, which means that in general, the U.S. population is now older than at any time in our history, with a median age of 40-plus years old in many states. We're living longer than ever, and the older we get, the more expensive we generally are to maintain. In 1950, there were 16.5 contributors for every beneficiary receiving a check from the Social Security trust fund. Sixty years later in 2010, that ratio had fallen to 2.9:1.

This is but one significant factor for which we'll eventually have to account, if we want our economy to continue to grow. And here's another thing we've got to consider, for which the data contains some rather eye-popping if not hideous statistics, and about which some people in positions of influence and power would prefer that the general population not know. (And yes, I'm talking about the distribution of wealth, so if you prefer the comfort of your right-wing hobgoblins to actual economic facts and figures, you best stop reading now.)

If one looks at financial wealth distribution in this country for the year 2010, the wealthiest 10% of the U.S. population either owns outright or controls 77% of the country's net worth and 88% of its investment assets, yet accounts for only 53% in local, state and federal tax revenues. Inversely, the remaining 90% of us only account for 23% of the country's net worth and 12% of its investment assets, yet we pay almost half of all tax revenues collected various levels of government. What's wrong with this picture?

To put this in even further and somewhat more horrifying context, back in 1976 the wealthiest 1% of Americans held a 19.9% share of the nation's overall wealth. By 1994, that share had nearly doubled to 38.9%, before settling back to its current 35.4%.

(SOURCES: (1) Domhoff, G. William, Ph.D., "Wealth, Income and Power", Dept. of Sociology, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2010; and
(2) Johnston, David Kay, "United in Our Delusion," Syracuse University, October 2010.)

In short, the wealthiest segments of our society have clearly benefited disproportionately from the overall growth of the U.S. economy during the past 35 years, often at the overall expense of the now-struggling American middle and labor classes, while the country's working poor are generally much more worse off than they were in 1980.

And I need not point out to most TLers here that nearly one in four American children under the age of 18 are now growing up in households which fall below the federal poverty line. I'd also be curious to note just how many of us have adult children still living at home due to economic circumstance -- I'll raise my hand on that one -- or how many of us have had to move back in or combine households with our parents or in-laws for mutual economic benefit.

For the long term interest and overall socio-economic health of our country, these are numbers which dearly need to be changed in both their amounts and direction.

Thus, patriotism is what girded and underscored the British people's will to survive a very difficult ordeal in both of the 20th centuries world wars. Conversely, jingoism is what drove them to build an obscenely huge empire in the first place, one which ultimately spanned fully one quarter of the earth but also proved beyond their physical capacity to sustain after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The collective nationalism and tribalism in man to survive as distinct and independent peoples is indeed strong, while the collection of an empire is but a very expensive proposition.

This is a tricky one - I suppose.
Framed as sacrificing the lives of 300 to save a potential 1000.

But it stinks as far as I'm concerned. In fact, in the show, it turns out there was no bomb on board. Ooops. Sorry.

What it left me with is the concept that the government can kill any one of us - and justify it by saying it is for the common good.

"Five years later, even though his service on the bench excluded him for military service, McCarthy joined the Marines, hoping that his combat experience would enhance his political stature. As an intelligence officer stationed in the Pacific, he spent the war debriefing pilots after they returned from bombing raids over Japan. Yet, when he returned to campaign at home, he transformed himself into 'tail-gunner Joe,' the battle-scarred veteran who survived hazardous missions over Japanese-held territory and, in the process, 'fired more bullets than any marine in history' during his fourteen (a figure he later changed to seventeen and then thirty-two) engagements with the enemy. To prove his courage, he asked to receive (and was awarded) the Distinguished Flying Cross." LINK.

I'll have to defer to your brother-in-law's version, given his own claim to have served in the same unit with McCarthy. But probably due to the senator's own later political exaggerations regarding his military service, the record appears to fairly muddied with regards to what he actually accomplished during his time in the Marines. Even the various right-wing websites set up to counter the senator's tarnished legacy are in disagreement as to the actual record.

Further, local historian Thomas C. Reeves' examination of that record leaves little or no doubt that McCarthy clearly falsified substantive portions of his World War II military record while campaigning against Robert La Follette, Jr. for the U.S. Senate in 1946. He misled Wisconsin voters about his actual rank, about being wounded in combat (rather, he suffered a broken foot upon falling from a ladder), about serving three times the number of missions he flew in the South Pacific, and even about serving as a tail gunner. There's also a very distinct possibility that he even used his subsequent status as a U.S. senator to retroactively forge a military citation and falsify official USAAC flight records, in order to support his earlier campaign claims.

(SOURCE: Reeves, Thomas C., Ph.D. "Tail Gunner Joe: Joseph McCarthy and the Marine Corps." Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 62, No. 4, Summer 1979)

By STEVEN A. HOLMES (NY Times)
Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders

snip

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Link

BTW - Clinton was President.

Now, Bush did try to get things back under control.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

snip

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

If your answer is no, then it does not matter what the spin is/was/will be.  Cuz we demand no better.  

I guess Hillary besting Jeb Bush in the polls is really driving hysteria in the GOP.

You know you only can cry wolf for so long before no one listens to you.

Again, you can scream and cry all you want and yell gloom and doom but nobody wants what you are selling.