You Can't Pan for Gold in a Swimming Pool

The choices are now set: Clinton as Democratic nominee, Trump as Republican nominee. If you don't things things are set then, quite frankly, you are delusional. Yet to be determined is if some other Republican will be put up with the goal of deciding the election in the House, as I mentioned in a previous post.

Now that they are out, here's my opinion on the new losers (alphabetically):

• Cruz - He's either a true hard-right, no abortion, open-carry, "states rights" guy or he's an idiot. The former is the the type that appeals most to the most die-hard, vote under any circumstance Republican. If he's that type then at least he's sticking by his ideas. If he's not then he's an idiot for thinking that doing so could win him the nomination.
• Kasich - He tries to appear to be a normal middle-of-the-road guy but aside from a couple policies, he's not. He's stayed above the fray but only because he saw what happened to those that went into the fray. The last couple weeks he seems to only be interested in eating.
• Sanders - Sanders has been a politician for a long time. He is from a very small state. He is totally disingenuous when he claims to be an outsider. He rails against politicians being beholden to special interests who give them money and yet is beholden to his donors who do not represent the majority of the country (and apparently not the majority of the Democratic Party). He thinks that the poor should be helped and that trade agreements are bad. Trade agreements are almost universally accepted by economists as a net positive for the parties involved. However, that can mean that labor in our country that is paid far more than the prevailing world wage will suffer while people in some other part of the world will benefit. Also, everyone else in our country benefits by somewhat lower prices. Sanders position is that if you don't live in this country too bad for you. If you do live in this country, it is perfectly reasonable to ask every American to pay extra to support some small segment of the population. Sanders is right that there is a problem but he offers no actual solution.

Don't take any of the above as an endorsement in any way of either Clinton or Trump. But you can take all of them, as a group, as an indictment of our current political system and how it is set up to keep both parties in power.