By Jim Hoover Greed is good. Big government is bad, unless government (us) is bailing out the greedy. This bit of propaganda has infiltrated America since 1970, and gained momentum around the time that Ronald Reagan came upon the scene. Remember, he is the one that said, “Government is…
By Jim Hoover If as Americans you are not embarrassed by the response of jailers at a Tehran prison to two captured American hikers released this month, then you should be. I know that I am. The two American prisoners reported that when they complained about conditions in their…
By Jim Hoover The members of our political equation leave a lot to be desired, from Congress to President Obama, on down to the voter. In the end, the people as intelligent and informed voters are a critical link to the preservation of democracy, especially in choosing their representatives…
By Jim Hoover The repugnant, the brain-dead, the mediocre, and the ugly seem to be accepted parts of our Republican political scene. Just witness what is euphemistically called the Republican debates. Each debate seems to be speaking for developmentally disabled, gradually working toward repulsive, and scoring a crescendo in…
By Jim Hoover It is hard to see Rick Perry as either rational or serious about anything but gaining power. By all appearances he is an anti-federalist who wants to lead what he deems is a tyrannical union. Maybe he wants to declare himself a tyrant for Texas. Does…
By Jim Hoover Paul Krugman’s “The Bleeding Cure” oped this week in the NY Times provided the comparison of the Middle Age practice of bleeding the patient to make them healthy, to the mistaken notion that our recession can be cured with reduced deficits. The problem with this analogy…
By Jim Hoover Commercial banks normally provide important services as financial intermediaries, collecting funds for safe, liquid and secure investment opportunities. Since the great depression, gambling and speculative activities were always kept separate, that is until greed was successfully infused into the process beginning in the 1980s. Since then…
By Jim Hoover You have seen the scale of justice held by the Lady Justice, often depicted wearing a blindfold to denote justice being meted out objectively. The personification of the moral force in judicial systems dates back to Ancient Egypt’s Goddess Maat, but the image is actually patterned…
By Jim Hoover For most Americans, it is too early for the nonstop verbal inanities of the 2012 elections. For the power base it is almost too late to begin machinations, which for most part, center around money, puppeteer candidates, and programs to manipulate the people. My guess is…
By Jim Hoover If not for fools and narcissists in our public scene, what would the media have to fill hours of news programs? Celebrities, politicians, sports figures, and megalomaniacs dominate media attention, some annoying and some amusing, but when put in positions of power and authority, potentially dangerous.…