Fundamentally strong

Ace says the economy is still fundamentally strong, and that's a big relief. We can trust Ace on this; he's the guy who just chose the most qualified person on the planet as his running mate. Today I was out trying to do a little grocery shopping, and every store was filled with what appeared to be refugees from the hurricane stocking up on stuff they needed. The shelves in some aisles were starting to look empty. For an instant, I got a glimpse of what things might be like if the economy ever gets bad for real.

Republicans have three solutions to every problem. Their first solution, the one that's universal in Republicanism, is tax cuts. Gasoline prices too goddamned high ? Solution -- tax cuts for the oil companies. Check. The other two Repub solutions for whatever ails us are (a) privatization and (b) deregulation. They've been privatizing and deregulating everything they can get their hands on to the point that we've virtually privatized our ability to conduct our wars. Repubs get orgasmic over their idea of The Triple Crown, a bill that cuts taxes, deregulates, and privatizes in one swoop.

There may be times when privatizing and deregulating work, but when they don't the mess it creates stinks to high heaven, like rotting corpses in a killing field. We're catching a whiff of the stench this week.