Lets for a moment stop all the partisan rancor and speak in cold realities. The recent Wall Street meltdown that triggered the near economic collapse we are experiencing is merely the effect in our cause/effect scenario. The actual causes go back decades.

Back in the '80s a fellow by the name of Jude Wanniski got in the then president's ear, one Ronald Reagan to be precise, and sold him on what Wanniski saw as a way to render the government impotent - the main objective being to prevent government from having the ability to control the activities of corporate America. They call it free capitalism. What history has and will again call it is fascism. For more info on this Google "The Two Santa Clauses."

The single most profound economic statement I have ever heard was uttered by yet another actor. In the movie "The Hustler" the character played by the late Paul Newman said, "Money's only a way of keeping score." In his world the money had no real value. It was all about the game. In real life those same principals apply.

Money in and of itself is worthless. You can't eat it or heat your home with it or dress in it or drive it to work. Only when goods and services are bought, sold and manufactured can the money that served as the engine to the economic merry-go-round claim any value. "It's only a way or keeping score"

When great sums of wealth are socked away in someone's private vault, safe deposit box or off-shore tax haven, it becomes worthless to the economy at large. A person that already has several million is unlikely to increase spending on anything; if he should earn yet another million he'll most likely sock it away, thus weakening the economy just a little more.

The trickle-down economic philosophy has failed. In fact, it was doomed from the beginning.

It's your duty as an American to be truly informed. If not, how can you cast an intelligent ballot?

J.M. Collins, Lebanon