They aren't like you and me

The Republican National Committee, which represents the party that is going to save us from national deficits by giving tax breaks to millionaires, is itself $23 million in debt.

But they have a plan to become fiscally more responsible. Reince Priebus, the new chairman, has fired 42 employees to save $500,00 per month which would be 6 million per year.

If you do the math it works out to an average paycheck of $142,000 a year.

Worth every penny, I assume.

they have more money.

Now that everyone's rep has been destroyed

For some time I have been harping on the idea that no one's reputation has survived the Bush Years, or the Double 'Aughts, so much so that I have become a broken record. But it reflects a bitter truth that I think we should be aware of. Now this loss of reputation, indeed of basic trust and respect, has spread throughout the entire system of our society.

Here is Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal:

I spoke to a Manhattan-based psychiatrist who said there is an uptick in the number of his patients reporting depression and anxiety. He believes part of the reason is that we're in a new place, that "When people move into a new home they increasingly recognize the importance of their previous environment." Our new home is postprosperity America; the old one was the abundance; we miss it. But he also detected a political dimension to his patients' anguish. He felt that many see our leaders as "selfish and dishonest," that "our institutions have been revealed as incompetent and undependable." People feel "unled, overwhelmed," the situation "seemingly unsalvageable." The net result? He thinks what he is seeing, within and without his practice, is a "psychological pandemic of fear" as to the future of things—of our country, and even of mankind.

This morning, as I drank the first cup of coffee, I read on the front page of the paper the bitter fulminations of a selection of Bernie Madoff's victims - they want his head on a platter.

So who's next?

American elites and you and me ... and mass idiocy

Remember that I have said several times in Sententiae that virtually all American elites, business, military, political and education, have failed America during the Bush years (not entirely Bush's fault, but still). If I needed any proof of this vast overgeneralization, here it is:

The housing fiasco.

Here's David Brooke's opinion - he's more or less a conservative:

Who’s not to blame? The mortgage brokers were out of control. Regulators were asleep. Home buyers thought they were entitled to Corian counters and a two-story great room. Everybody from Norwegian town elders to financial geniuses decided that house prices would always go up. This was an episode of mass idiocy.

And Megan McCardle of Atlantic.com has this:

Before we enter into the orgy of blame, I'd suggest that that someone was everyone, almost. Crazy Asian people who thought America was some sort of Miracle Market sent us more money than we needed for investment, inflating an asset price bubble. The Federal Reserve, complacent after more than twenty years of tame inflation, added a little kerosene to an already blazing fire. Silly people decided that real estate prices would continue rocketing upwards forever, and took on ridiculous mortgages that they had no reasonable hope of paying off. Idiot bankers thought that their enormous brains, raffish good looks, and advanced computer models had enabled them to conquer risk.

I rest my case.