People often ask me why we can't let banks and organizations such as CITI and AIG just fail. The answer is simpler than most of us would expect. First it is important to think of the economic system as an organism comprised of a series of interrelated systems similar to the human body. The banking system is the circulatory system of the economy; Money is the blood of the economy. If an artery, such as a major bank, gets clogged some other major organ may fail or be severely impaired. We can equate the failure of major financial institutions to the clogging of arteries that lead to cascading organ failure. Clogging of the renal artery can lead to kidney failure. We can survive with one missing kidney but a loss of both will kill the organism. A bad kidney can lead to a bad liver which can affect other organs. CITI or AIG going under can lead to a cascading collapse of other banks and financial institutions to the extent that the whole organism we call an economy can die. Therefore it is necessary to prevent the total failure of these organizations.

 However, this does not mean that we must preserve the plaque that got us into trouble to begin with. Just as arteries can be opened using stints and plaque can be reduced with Statins, financial institutions may need a complete change in the clogging agent known as outdated management. In addition, a pacemaker (regulatory agency) and regular check-ups (audits) may need to be added to keep the system healthy.

Whenever I hear the minions of the Republican Party, and the right wing goofballs such as Rush Limbaugh, screaming about the Democratic Party's lack of fiscal responsibility I am dumbfounded by their self deception. The fact is that history shows our worst years of fiscal responsibility have occurred under Republican Administrations. Data on the Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP, generated by the OMB, demonstrates this.

From 1960 through 1980 there was a general decline in Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP from 56% to 33.1%. However, with the beginning of Reaganomics in 1981 we can see a sharp increase in this percentage. It continues to grow sharply throughout the Reagan and Bush senior years. As stated earlier in 1980 the debt was 33.1% of GDP. Republican prolificacy led the percentage to top out at 67.3% in 1996. Throughout the balance of the Clinton years the value dropped. In 2002 it was down to 59.2%. With Bush junior's ascendance to the presidency there was a sharp increase in debt until it is projected to reach 67.5% when the final figure for fiscal 2008 is in.

Somehow the Republicans have managed to deceive the press and the public into believing their myth of Fiscal Responsibility. I guess they have learned well from Joseph Goebbels: If you tell a big enough lie often enough people will begin to believe it. When will the press start doing its job and start challenging the deceptions of the right?

If you read the current press or watch television news you may have heard that Americans have lost confidence in President Obama. The real problem is that the media in their stupidity has given credence to the latest scam of the obstructionists from the right.

The real issue is that the right wing, who believe that government has no role to play, has spent so much time talking about how Obama's plans couldn't work that the economically ignorant press has begun to believe them. If Obama's plans fail it is because the right has been obstructing so much of anything he tries to do that the people have lost confidence not in him but in the who political process. When Rush Limbaugh says he wants Obama to fail and Rick Santorum, a light of the "Right" agrees, we find we are all in trouble. The right has learned that expectations have an awful lot to do with how an economy operates. If they can destroy positive expectations then the failure of the recovery can move the right into power in 2012.

Rush and his ilk are traitors. They are more interested in their regaining power than they are in the health of the country. Their governors' refusal of stimulus funds borders on criminal behavior and implications that they can refuse to follow laws they believe to be unconstitutional is a step toward cession and a new civil war. They would rather see a failure of the republic than allow their opponents any semblance of success.