Economic crisis is a wake-up call

For years now, we have been a consumer society. We have outsourced our jobs, or imported aliens from countries all over the world, who don't pay taxes, to do 20 percent of the work we should have been doing ourselves. GM, Ford, and Chrysler made exorbitant profits building SUVs on pickup truck frames and mechanicals. Now you can buy their stock, if you have the courage, for less than your average hamburger. It all really started to go bad when gas went to $4 a gallon.

But here is something else to consider. Osama bin Laden knew our scrappy prior president would pursue him and other terrorists at all costs. Post 9-11, the assault of our federal Treasury began with financing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in addition to helping all of Dick Chaney's buddies at Blackwater and Halliburton. Nothing was set aside for infrastructure, health care, schools, job creation, or energy strategy.

Keep in mind, we have had a Democratic Congress. What did they do? They put Martha Stewart in jail for insider trading, and went after professional athletes, who get paid tens of thousands of dollars and even more every time they step into the batter's box, for allegedly taking steroids. We also had a great preoccupation and debate about whether or not two people of the same gender can be married. What a waste of time.

Our 401(k)s are gone, our neighborhoods and cities are losing value, the country is going bankrupt, and we have these silly partisan debates about what to do that ultimately leads to ineffective compromises. When it seems like the only enterprise in the U.S. that can get credit (by printing money as it needs it) is the Federal Government, we should either spend as much as we possibly can to save our way of life, or spend nothing, and just let the "free market" take care of itself.

This economic crisis is our financial Vietnam - a halfhearted commitment which ultimately gained us nothing. It is one of the worst failures in our country's history.

John T. Massouras

Buffalo Grove