Observations...

Someone once described Havergal Brian's Symphony No. 1 as "All gong and no dinner." That pretty much sums up the Obama administration, doesn't it?

Dakinkat has asked me to direct your attention to Joseph Stiglitz' brilliant piece on how to solve the world economic meltdown.

The prescription for what ails the global economy follows directly from the diagnosis: Strong government expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves.

Provocateurs: In my first piece on OWS, I predicted that the provocateurs would soon go into action. I'm not the only one sounding a warning.

It isn’t hard. Find a die hard Tea Partier or die-hard left wing Anarchist for that matter. Convince them that “the Man” has to be taught a lesson. They don’t even have to shoot anyone. Just fire some shots in the air and run like hell...

A wide spectrum media campaign to discredit the OWS movement. From all directions, not just Fox News–about corruption in the OWS leadership, tax evasion, jaywalking, whatever. This will come first, as it is needed to turn public opinion against OWS.

When a leader emerges -- that's inevitable, and don't pretend otherwise -- the Fox Newsers will do their oppo research, and eventually they will find something. Maybe they'll discover that the leader ran over a cat in 1983. OWS will then be labeled the "cat-killer movement." Sean Hannity will deliver his broadcasts backed by footage of cute little kittens.

Watch it happen.

Where did the money go? I don't agree with everything written here, but the piece reminds us of the reason we're in trouble. It wasn't the stimulus package: That was $700 billion, much of which went to tax cuts. It wasn't TARP: A lot of that was paid back -- although you'll find varying data as to how much was repaid. No, we went bust because we went into needless battle:

America’s two wars of choice in the Middle East have cost $1.3 trillion in direct costs, thus far. The long-term costs will total over $3 trillion.

On top of that were the irresponsible tax cuts on the wealthy and a whole lot of pork spending throughout the Bush years. (As I often pointed out at the time, the red states were surprisingly happy to suck government teat.)

War, deregulation, red state pork and tax cuts. That's how we fucked ourselves. But you'll never get a Republican to admit the obvious. In fact, it's often quite hard to get Dems to admit it.

All of which brings me to today's new recommendation to the OWS goal-seekers. I favor a Constitutional amendment to insure that if we go to war, mandatory tax increases will kick in. Such an amendment would transform us into the most peace-loving nation the world has ever seen.