And thats the rub - news was never meant to entertain. We have gorged ourselves on entertainment for so long that anything other than something that IS entertaining...is just seen as a waste of time (even though its beneficial!!).

This is where the Daily Show and Colbert Report format comes in handy. They have balanced analaysis of important issues, and its entertaining.

If CNN and MSNBC tried to mirror that (and somehow didnt fail miserably....), then we would all be better for it.

The Dutch government fell because 1 of the 3 leading parties is a radical right party and only does what is popular, not what is smart.

What always surprises me is there is a debate about spending or not in the first place. Spending may or may not help us out of the mess, but its the policies that got us into this that should finally be looked at.

On top of that, the spend more philosophy is a hard one to defend. There is no good evidence it does anything but raise the debt the government is in. Every time it has failed, the believers simply say that it was even more that was required. When it didnt fail, was it truly due to more spending?

In the past, when everyone was still more or less isolated gaining more government debt was fine. You could always print more money. Today the inflation and especially devaluation vs other currencies will make your troubles worse.