Although I like Krugman I have to take issue with this statement regarding the conflicting opinions of Americans regarding balancing the budget:

“How can voters be so ill informed? In their defense, bear in mind that they have jobs, children to raise, parents to take care of. They don’t have the time or the incentive to study the federal budget, let alone state budgets (which are by and large incomprehensible). So they rely on what they hear from seemingly authoritative figures.”

I feel there is not defense for being ill informed about how our government works. The information is readily available online about how much we spend on the military, how much of our wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few greedy bastards, which politicians care about the wealthy and which care about the rest of us, etc.
This willful ignorance is why the corporate bastards have hijacked our government. People this lazy and stupid get the government they deserve.

Which party do you prefer, The Shitty Party, or the Really Shitty Party. Voters don’t get a very good choice here since neither has done much for the people who are suffering in this economic catastrophe, and it looks like nothing is going to get done. What’s even worse it that another economic crisis will get heaped upon this one since they haven’t bothered to really regulate the market casinos.
Americans are totally screwed and don’t seem to have a clue how to stop it.

Just when my cynical self thinks Obama can’t sink any lower as a sellout, he tries to pull this. It really is sickening. I actually believed he cared about the poor and oppressed, but apparently not at all. Did he knowingly lie to us when he was campaigning, or did he sell out after he got into office?

Nice torso. He needs a head bag though.

If the Republicans chose Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney I don’t see how it would be that much different from the guy in office now.

St. Ronnie, the guy who launched the great wealth shift in America. The patron saint of self centered, ignorant dupes who live in a fantasy world. The guy never went to church, but right wing Christians love him. He raised taxes, but anti tax people love him. He was a buffoon and tool. This deification for a lousy president is a pathetic attempt to rewrite history and what’s really sorry is that most people seem to be falling for it.

You can play with statistics and numbers all you want but the bottom line is that tens of millions don’t have work. Tens of millions work part time when they used to work full time. Tens of millions got a pay and benefits cut. Tens of millions work at a low paying shitty job when the used to have a good job. Tens of millions have lost their homes. Tens of millions have lost their health insurance and pensions.
And the government isn’t doing squat about it.

I have a (mostly) apolitical blog with some of my experiences here. It’s a pretty amazing journey my life has taken.

It’s right here.

It’s Zhanjiang, in Guangdong province. It’s a “small” city of only 7 million people, about halfway between Hong Kong and Viet Nam. Subtropical and on the South China Sea. There are 3 McDonald’s, 1 Pizza Hut, 3 or 4 KFC’s, and 2 Wal Marts. That is the totality of America here. There might be a couple of hundred foreigners living in this city.

Where I live nothing is Americanized.

You can get everything except fortune cookies and that pink stuff you dip your fried shrimp into. That’s all American/Chinese food.

They don’t. They block Youtube, Facebook and some blog sites, including the site I use for my blog. I subscribe to an excellent proxy service that gets around all that.

Thanks. It’s been a fave of mine for a while.

I live in China and it’s definitely a lot more fun here now than it is in the US. All you have right now is Ground Hog Day and the Super Bowl. No fireworks there. We will be raising hell for the next two weeks.