Sep 30, 2008

Bushonomics & The Tickle Down Economic Disaster

Trickle-down economics" and "trickle-down theory," is the economic-political argument that the increases in the wealth of the rich are good for the poor because some of such additional wealth will eventually trickle down to the middle class and to the poor. At least that is what it says in Wikipedia, Karl Max had theories that made more sense. The only thing that has tickled down is bad debt, maxed out credit cards, stagflation in commodities and a recession in the housing industry. Instead of the Mullahs at the top to let anything tickle out, they papered over all the cracks to prevent any possible leakage. Smart CEOs made sure that unemployment tickled down by constantly laying off workers to improve efficiency. Hedge funds controlling trillions of dollars speculated with glee on oil and we all watched as the price of a barrel of crude climbed from $17.00 to $150.00 per, while the resultant increase in the cost of gas tickle down to the masses. This tickle down nonsense, seems curiously familiar to this Nigerian, I knew I had seen it somewhere before; but I was not sure where? An economic environment in which the ruling class and their well connected friends, initiated a plan to rob the treasury and pass the burden of repaying the mess on the country while they themselves swiftly proceeded to retire to a life of luxury and great wealth? OH MY GUSH, it is the same thing IBB and Uncle Segun were doing to Nigeria all these years. Turns out that greed and corrupt is universal; and was not invented in Africa contrary to what you might have heard.

So here we are, eight years into the most disastrous reign of ignorance, mismanagement and ineptitude, since the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, I can say with certainty that yes the hubris advanced by this culture's belief that “There is winning and then there is misery” has finally caught up with us. Despite the colossal failure that was the first four years of the bush administration (an administration that went to war just to juice up the economy), some bible touting, gay bashing, narrow minded, gun loving, right wing zealots masquerading as fiscally responsible conservatives decided that the first go around was so nice, that we had to have another go. So here we are, four more years later.

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