That is correct. Congress controls the purse strings. The 2008 collapse occurred after the Democrats took control of the nation's financial affairs in 2006.

I teach in the business school of a former state teacher's college. And too much of what I see is Potemkin village. If you're hiring our graduates, you'd best not trust our certification that they know anything. Any professor who focuses on students will likely lose his/her job; That's because he/she isn't whole-heartedly devoted to research and publication. (And most of that publication is aimed at keeping one's job rather than at having any practical impact -- hence the preference for convoluted rather than simple prose, for example). And if the student-focused professor pushes them -- if he/she has standards and insists they be met -- the resulting hostile student evaluations will be used to get rid of that professor.

My Amen was to DG's wish for longer, editable posts. 3129's snarky post mostly reveals his/her monkey-like lack of enculturation.

Amen to that!

Troll, We Are NOT going to stay home and let your preferred ruler, Obama, win this by default! You may devoutly desire to be enslaved, but the rest of us prefer freedom.

I'd agree with Lauri5, except that I suspect it's about 75% of _both_ genders who vote their feelings rather than on a rational basis. The Dem's depend on this.

I'm sure the Obama campaign has people working to build up the votes for them. But they're also spending money to discourage others from showing up to vote for Romney. It's plausible that GoFred! is one of those Obama operatives. Same objectives.

How about this? We create a housing bubble by forcing banks to extend loans to sub-prime borrowers. This draws in many marginally skilled immigrants to swing hammers & plant big lawns. Then we pop the bubble by allowing some over-extended banks to die (WA Mutual, Lehman). So we're left with a severe overhang of excess housing and falling home-sale prices. Which pretty much destroys the jobs those marginally skilled immigrants held. Which pushes some of them, now unemployed, to return home, where life is cheaper. (Except for those in blue states where bleeding heart liberals will insist on subsidizing them.) My proposed policy should work (except for the liberals who want to keep them here). (Oh. Yeh. We already tried this, didn't we?)

This is a little peripheral to the issue of how can Republicans win women's votes. It hurts our cause to get distracted into such sideshows.

The true unemployment rate depends on how many discouraged workers we have. Since discouragement is a mental state, it's hard to assess. But the government estimates U6, which is somewhere around 16% unemployed at the moment. Your 22% is at least within the realm of plausibility. But not the 50% you quote. Your "solutions" probably hurt the people you're trying to help, since "workers" are also "consumers" and most of what you propose will hurt consumers by raising prices. Imposing tariffs on imports just cuts off the supply of cheap foreign goods. Most Americans are better off on welfare than working those low-end jobs at illegals' wages. Leaving American industry dependent on inadequately prepared American students is a disaster.