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Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
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Nov. 18, 2009
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JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 13, 2008 / 14 Tishrei 5769

Voter hatred of Wall Street: As explained by FDR

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If the crash of 1929 and that of 2008 are similar, then let's study the voter anger that 1929 kindled to inform our understanding of what is going on today. In the thirties, voters turned sharply against their former Wall Street heroes and the name of big business 20 became mud for millions who felt misled by greedy financiers and took it out on the Republican Party.


To grasp what happened then and is happening now, look at the first inaugural address remarks of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He gave voice to the angst and anger of the times and gave us a clue to understanding what is going on today.


"Plenty is at our doorstep," he began, "but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply." Then he assigned blame. "Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the minds and hearts of men." He continued "true they have tried but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition." Then, in remarks that could have been aimed squarely at=2 0the Hoover-esque bailout bill, he said "faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence." Then, reaching across the decades to articulate an ancient truth he said "They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision and when there is no vision the people perish."


Finally, he came to his peroration. "The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths." In a barb that could have been aimed at the golden parachutes that spread their bounty across Wall Street this month, he said "the measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."


While our opinion leaders debate how long the markets will remain in flux, those who follow public opinion or run for office must realize that the rupture of faith between the leaders of our capitalist system and the investors who followed them with their hard earned money is deep, bitter, and long lasting. Those who so abused our trust as to lend money to people who could never dream of repaying it and who bought paper, with our money, backed by such shady loans have abdicated their positions of leadership. In their drive to expand home ownership so as to placate an ever larger constituency of minorities and poor people, the Democrats have saddled us with an unbelievable burden of government insured debt. And in their desire to reap profits from these enterprises, the Republican barons of Wall Street have inveigled us all into buying their stocks based on values inflated by fraudulently obtained loans. The natural reaction of voters is to wish for a plague on both the parties. Their animosity and hatred will not soon disappear and any who think themselves exempt are in for a rude awakening.


But all of this anger is being played out against the backdrop of a presidential race entering its last month. How will it effect the vote? In normal circumstances, it would impel a Democratic landslide. After all, the malefactors who made out like bandits were Republicans, the Administration and the regulators were Republican, and for most of the time the Congress was Republican.


But voters face a choice between a Republican Party whose image has been destroyed by its Wall Street allies and a Democratic nominee whose spiritual advisor is Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Whose financial backer is Rezko. The man who provided the money for his first real job was William Ayers. And, now it appears, that the object of his financial largesse and the organization for which he was Illinois general counsel was ACORN, massively implicated in voter fraud, funded, in large part, by Obama's presidential campaign funds. Are we to elect such a man president? Are we to trust the party of Wall Street with four more years at the till? That is the dilemma that makes this election unstable and unpredictable. May the least worst man win!

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Fleeced: How Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies ... Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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