Economy Blah Blah

Well, it's the economy, stupid.

As we all pay the price for the subprime fiasco, I get angrier and angrier. Most of us didn't buy a house we couldn't afford. Most of us didn't lie about our income to get a house. Most of us didn't have jobs where we were incented to lie and cheat the system.

But, most of us will pay the price. We'll pay it in falling home values, and we'll pay it in higher taxes to bail out the idiots who did the things above. The media plays the subprime problem up to be a huge deal, and it is. But, subprime loans were not that prevalent. You'd think everyone had a subprime loan the way the media reports this. So, the overhyped problem actually becomes a problem for everyone.

How bad can the economy really be? Unemployment is around 5%, which is normal. Sure, gas prices are high, but they're driven to those levels by a whole lot of speculation in the market, and by the falling dollar.

The real economic crisis is the value of the dollar. We'd all be better off if we had taken our dollars and invested them in European real estate. What does that tell you?

The ever higher price of oil is driven by the falling dollar. On the world market, oil is pegged to the dollar. As the dollar declines, it takes more of them to buy oil, thus the price of oil goes up with the declining dollar.

The credit crisis is partially to blame for the falling dollar, as it causes doubt about our economic stability. But, more importantly, the cost of the war in Iraq is bankrupting this country. As our deficit increases, the dollar shrinks. That's how it works. We can't afford for this war to continue. We've spent nearly half a trillion dollars on this war so far. Guess who owes that bill? You and I.

It's time for the Iraqis to fend for themselves. It's time we wean ourselves off oil, and tell the Middle Eastern countries to peddle their precious oil somewhere else.

Then, watch the value of the dollar climb, the price of oil drop, and the economy start to hum again.