2 thoughts on “Inauguration Day”

  1. Poor man. He must be wondering why he wanted the job. No President in our history has inherited a bigger mess. The economy is swirling in the bowl, we are in two wars, our prestige is at an all time low, most of our Congress are crooks. The other day I was thinking about the economy, and I had this light bulb moment: Capitalism does not work. That may not sound like a revelation to you, but it is an idea that I have taken for granted all my life. Capitalism is premised on people being honest and not being greedy. It has become increasingly obvious that is not the case. I don’t know where we’re headed. I haven’t been impressed with socialism, but it may be the only answer – or a modified form of it, which is where we already are.

  2. Karen, I totally agree with you – poor man. What a load to carry. When President Obama set out on the road to the White House, he certainly can not have had even the slightest idea of the mess somebody left for him to tackle and to clear up.

    On to the other subject – your interpretation of capitalism. That is a strange one for me – or let’s say, this interpretation might have been correct a long, long, very long time ago. I mean, I am talking millennias here. And even then I somehow doubt that those premises came in to play. Capitalism has always been about some gaining while others don’t or some gaining through others. To stay honest and to not become greedy in the position of the gainer – that has always been, will always be a tough task. So, even if it might be the basis for capitalism to work that people are honest/not greedy, it never quite worked that way.

    Socialism – yes, I know that this is a word many a good American feels his/her hairs rising with fear. But if you look at Europe, the model there (at least since the end of WWII) has been one which in Germany is called “soziale Marktwirtschaft” (social market economy). If you look it up on Google – plenty to read there about it – you will see that even though the dreaded “S”-word is included, the actual model is an interesting mix of thoughts, which rejects both socialism and the harshest forms of capitalism.

    For me that seems to be the way to go. But then – that is just my opinion. Oh, and by the way, if one should go this way, there a a few mistakes made in the past one could avoid by learning from them.

    By the way, the choice of the coin as photo of the day – I love the “Spirit of Liberty” and I did not have any other image of it; this was not meant to be a pointer towards capitalism.

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