Yo, mouse,

You certainly hit the nail on the head on why we have so much unemployment... Wall Street has small businesses in a squeeze play and have no intentions of making the loans that 2 years ago would have been no problem...

I've got a 900 credit rating and a bank whoes loan officer has told me going back 5 years that her bank would be with me until I finished the "hotel" project... Then 6 months ago they changed their minds... No real reasons were given other than some vague BS about federal regulators... Seems that when all else fails, blame the feds???

No matter... Like other small businessmen I had no choice but to close up shop and lay off my crew, all of whom are still unemployed...

I donno if it's Wall Streets intent to disrupt the economy with the purpose of driving the Dems outta power or not but I suspect that is the case... And I also suspect that most of it comes from their fear that the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy will be allowed to sunset... That's a big chunk of change that is now sitting idle...

The entire idea behind the tax cuts, we are told, was to ptoduce jobs??? Well, hows it workin'???

From the early 50's into the 70's the unemployment rate stayed at a steady 4%... It's no accident that a third of the workforce was unionized during those years... The thing is that the country was buzzin' along purdy good... No, we didn't have a large number of super wealthy folks but, on the whole, the country and it's economy was a'hummin' then came Reaganomics, union busting and the country hasn't been the same since...

Yeah, their is corruption but it has become institutionalized to the point where Boss Hog can make a couple phone calls and get purdy much what he wants... This is not how a "free market" system is supposed to work... It can't be free when the fat cats can rig it in their favor...

That's why we have 9.5% unemployment... It's rigged...

B~