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Web Letter

I'm a lifelong Democrat,and would have liked to have voted for Obama. But I voted for Nader because of Obama's choice of economic advisers. It was apparent that the party has gone corporate and is not to be trusted to defend the economic interests of the people. The only way you are going to change their behavior is to punish them at the ballot box. If there is a challenger in the primary, I will vote for him or her. In the general election, I will again vote for some third party.

Unemployment has reached 10 percent in the western US and will continue to climb. It will not be long before we will quit calling this economic crisis a recession, and it will be acknowledged as a worldwide "free trade" depression.

I was watching a BBC America special on China's stimulating their economy through building their infrastructure. It is all about job stimulation and the creation of a dependable internal consumer class. At the end of the series the reporter was in a port city, and pointed inland saying the Communist party controls the economy. He then pointed out to sea and said no one controls the world's economy. I think he was implying that China would fail because of "free trade." They will fail if their economy is based on foreign trade. But if they create jobs that produce a disposable income that supports consumer spending, their internal independent economy will take off like a rocket. Every country needs to pay attention to Main Street and not Wall Street.

Web Letter

This is one item among about thirty that I listed that show a very likely breakdown in the current Democratic coalition.

The percentage of Dems in labor unions is small, and becoming more concentrated among government workers. Consequently, their share of the total Democratic "pie" is quietly vanishing. Every direction that has been proposed for raising taxes has constituencies ready to fight. The same problem is occurring in California's mess.

Rather than tax increases, the most doable answer is to redirect spending from a lot of other government projects.

The worst, stupidest idea, though, is that IT reform will somehow, magically, create hundreds of millions of dollars to work with. This is dubious, and any intelligent person should want to see three-to-five years of solid result "banked" before it is counted in spending. I've checked this with a number of IT administrators and experts.

Check the ex-Socialist trend in the suburbs of Europe from the recent major election, for a comparison of what the US Democrats face as a coalition. I expect a movement similar to Reagan's in 2010 and '12.