by Carla Sutherland

Created on: January 04, 2009

To sum up the year of 2008, one can best describe it as the year of wars. There was the war against the poor, the war against food, the war against the environment, the war against housing, the war against freedom, and finally the war against accountability.

First off, the war against the poor. This is also known as the financial crisis on the world markets, starting out with Wall Street in the U.S., the downfall of the economy and subsequent bailout. Of course the bailout was the 'short term solution' for a long term problem. Unfortunately, due to a couple of decades of deregulation, unaccountability and tax breaks for the rich and corporations, it had allowed for things in the financial market to get way out of hand. Loans and loan sharking have enabled the tax burdened lower and middle classes to be unable to pay off their debts in a decent amount of time, which would have allowed them to free up their money giving them more power and privilege as a consumer. And this had led to less money in the banks to be used as equity for other loans as well as growth.

The bailout for the rich was of course the wrong solution. Tax cuts to the rich was the wrong solution. When the majority of the population is suffering, it is best to help them out. Removing the burdens from the many will help to alleviate the burdens on the few. If the lower classes had more money to spend, then it would give more money to the banks, stores the economy. Things would progress as they should. But the Bush and other administrations have been fighting a war against the poor for quite some time.

Even the car companies, after stopping the production of cleaner electric cars, are finding their sales at record lows. It also isn't a wonder that with the money in people's pockets being at an all time low, that cars and trucks are not being bought. No money in the banks for the loans so no cars are being taken out of the lots and into the streets. And with the high price of fuel finally dropping, it isn't nearly low enough to help out the automobile sector. Hence the coming of another short term bailout for a long term problem. Now the year 2009 is starting off with an unbelievable amount of unemployment and numerous calls to cut off funds for medicare, education and unemployment benefits in order to pay for the bailouts of the rich, as well as for the 'War on Terror'.

Next is the war against food, which also ties in with the war against the environment, as well as the war against the poor. We have

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