4 ms·

The missing piece is "learning about the problems and working to make the country better". It's hard not to feel that a significant number of elected officials

by knz 11y ago

The missing piece is "learning about the problems and working to make the country better". It's hard not to feel that a significant number of elected officials often have the opposite approach - ignore the facts/research and work to line the pockets of their benefactors.

dragontamer 11y ago
The main issue is that the two primary factions of US Politicians have grossly different ideas of what will and what won't make the country better. Then 2008 happens and everyone is right AND everyone is wrong. A unique blend of too-much regulation AND not-enough regulation hits the nation and everything goes to crap. Republicans continue to point at the too much regulation (US Government encouraging loans, which helped fuel the sub-crime mortgages which created the bubble in the first place), while Democrats continue to point at too little regulation (AIG creating Credit Default Swaps on the "dark market", hidden away from regulators, which insured CDOs of CDOs of Mortgaged backed securities which fueled the housing bubble). When in fact, both Republicans and Democrats are correct here. Government probably shouldn't have been doing some things, and the government probably should have been doing other things instead. But the parties are so locked into the mindset of "Government should do things" vs "Government shouldn't do things" that its hard to actually get any agreement anymore. Anyway, that's how I see things: the two factions of US Politics are focused on creating arguments for the two primary stances on virtually any issue that occurs in politics: whether government should do something about a particular issue, or whether government should NOT do something about a particular issue. That's good, and in fact, its great that people disagree because that's how we learn as a country. The problem is now the political wheels and deals have died off, because people have lost faith in the system. People need to start agreeing and creating consensus across the aisle so that the government can start doing stuff (be it rolling back poorly-implemented government programs, or pushing forward key beneficial government programs)

by knz 11y ago

dragontamer 11y ago

The main issue is that the two primary factions of US Politicians have grossly different ideas of what will and what won't make the country better. Then 2008 happens and everyone is right AND everyone is wrong. A unique blend of too-much regulation AND not-enough regulation hits the nation and everything goes to crap. Republicans continue to point at the too much regulation (US Government encouraging loans, which helped fuel the sub-crime mortgages which created the bubble in the first place), while Democrats continue to point at too little regulation (AIG creating Credit Default Swaps on the "dark market", hidden away from regulators, which insured CDOs of CDOs of Mortgaged backed securities which fueled the housing bubble). When in fact, both Republicans and Democrats are correct here. Government probably shouldn't have been doing some things, and the government probably should have been doing other things instead. But the parties are so locked into the mindset of "Government should do things" vs "Government shouldn't do things" that its hard to actually get any agreement anymore. Anyway, that's how I see things: the two factions of US Politics are focused on creating arguments for the two primary stances on virtually any issue that occurs in politics: whether government should do something about a particular issue, or whether government should NOT do something about a particular issue. That's good, and in fact, its great that people disagree because that's how we learn as a country. The problem is now the political wheels and deals have died off, because people have lost faith in the system. People need to start agreeing and creating consensus across the aisle so that the government can start doing stuff (be it rolling back poorly-implemented government programs, or pushing forward key beneficial government programs)