That's the most concilliatory note (re: FDR) I have heard since we had the Father Coughlin debate years ago.

It helps that the new research emerged from my fave old bastion of liberalism, UCLA. But it's four years old now and very few outside the small circles of plugged in economists are even aware of it.

Myths don't die. Somebody somewhere still believes in Zeus, another in Odin and we don't want to count the number who still believe in Jahweh. FDR as the Democrat economic saviour is carefully woven into 20th century political mythology and that image will prevail for at least another twenty years.

I understand the mood. My grandfather told me about the men scouring garbage cans for food and things to sell. Leaving your garage open was an invitation to larceny. I mentioned before that my grandfather had sponsored a soup line and that the line literally went around the block. Somewhere, I have a photo that was taken of the line. It shows a lot of cold, hungry and desperate people looking forward to a free meal.

FDR made mistakes. He thought he was doing good. But FDR is long gone and we need to move past either the worship or the denegration of the man.

Now we desperately need to undo the mistakes. We need to create an alternative minimum wage to recapture all the outsourced monies. That's the one thing that has grown the most in the past ten years - outsourcing & illegal hires. The minimum wage, which spurs both, is like having a hole in one's pocket - a non-stop flow of lost money passes through it, never to return to our economy. Make certain professions (the one's now being performed by illegals and outsourcing) subject to an available alternative minimum wage starting at $2.00 per hour. Farm labor, telephone answering, custodial, gardening, etc. (Yeah, I know..major head ache time in determining the precise list)

Social security needs to be ended. Refund the monies collected from young folks who've been in the SS system for less than ten years. Keep it going for the rest. Bite the bullet and learn from past mistakes. It'll still be a huge elephant in the room for several decades but as time passes it will shrink and be no more. Prepare for a short term screaming increase in the deficit. However, the fact that decisive action would be taken would help to rebound the strength in the dollar and the general economy would see a massive boom from the sizable refunds the young spenders would receive back.

I wish others would read the article too. The GOP and the DNC have groomed an adverserial relationship over the past fifty years so as to generate FUNDING. Both parties get more money when they can point to their enemy as the boogeyman. It's a farce and the sucker is John Q. Public.

We're NOT enemies. The parties should NOT be enemies. I long for the day each man and woman and office uses their OWN mind...and uses it WELL!

Our nation has no time for the parties and their games anymore. Too much is at stake.

;-)