Another Krugman winner: The Wastrel Son

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/opinion/18KRUG.html

He was a stock character in 19th-century fiction: the wastrel son who runs up gambling debts in the belief that his wealthy family, concerned for its prestige, will have no choice but to pay off his creditors. In the novels such characters always come to a bad end. Either they bring ruin to their families, or they eventually find themselves disowned.

George Bush reminds me of those characters — and not just because of his early career, in which friends of the family repeatedly bailed out his failing business ventures. Now that he sits in the White House, he's still counting on other people to settle his debts — not to protect the reputation of his family, but to protect the reputation of the country.

One by one, our erstwhile allies are disowning us; they don't want an unstable, anti-Western Iraq any more than we do, but they have concluded that President Bush is incorrigible. Spain has washed its hands of our problems, Italy is edging toward the door, and Britain will join the rush for the exit soon enough, with or without Tony Blair.


<more>

If it was just handing money to the rich it would be one thing but this is on every thing. Can anyone figure what he is doing to bring this great country to its knees and about half the people want it done? I am betting the rest of the world is just beyond its self watching us go down the drain.They do not want it any more then we do. What is the Far right thinking? I am telling you the old Republican party would not do this.

how the people followed this Pied Piper of catastrophe into his pit of calamity is a study in colossal human folly.

We could go into each thing Bush is taking apart and see it hurts a good many people but as yet this has not got to the people who vote for him. Take the White Mts. in NH and a little in Me. If they cut out the old woods a few people will have jobs and a few companies will make money for a year or so but for 50 years that it takes it to grew back people who visit and use that will have to put up with roads washed out, animals gone, lakes changed, the beauty marred, and I am sure their are 100's of thousands that go there every year. These international corp. that will cut and get the profits do not care and darn few who do the work will not work long. And that is just one small place they will do that and one small thing Bush is doing.I also will say that the rich people own the second homes in these places. People who make 40,000 a year hardly can buy 200,000 second homes. So when it hit home to those types the woods are already gone.The 40,000 a year people visit for a week or week-end or day. Every one will pay. The one good thing is the 200,000 homes will drop in price as who will want to live in the middle of a mess.I bet it tool 100 years to get that land set aside for all.

but fatal.

Only time will tell if our fears are justified.

Cheney and Bush put together are worse than all the worst welfare-abuse stories collected from the beginning of time.

so it depends on whether the rest of Britian will stop him

Brooks first to see what * wants to say, and then Krugman for the real story. It almost appears that we, who think this way, are starting to be a majority.

Brooks should be appointed to lead Iraq, or keep him ready for the next war of convenience. He is always so sure that he knows exactly what is going on.

... it's just too bad they let their guard down when GW (aka, underachiever) came along. He's running the US just like I thought he would given his track record