...always liked Ross Perot

In perfect contrarian, cosmopolitan form, at times it may appear those of us composing the content here at The Cosmopolitan Charlestonian are bleeding-heart, American Liberals (sigh)...but alas, we try to remain neutral and beg to differ amid the occasional accusation of Clintonite-style loyalties.

Back in the day, when Bill was busy winning America over with a hip jazz sax number, certain folks here were being swayed in another direction. Perot was labeled the "ultimate outsider" long before Obama made being Washington's new guy look cool. Suffice it to say, sixteen years ago nearly 19% of Americans voted for Perot, a fearless business man from Texas who, way back then, talked about balancing the U.S. deficit and rebuilding America's infrastructure. In his campaign he openly discussed real-time solutions to the souring economy of the early 90s; and like a sage, Perot advised us that a volatile financial structure was going to rob future generations of their wealth. Yet, Perot was marginalized like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and our favorite rabble-rouser, and green party candidate, Cynthia McKinney. Anyway, if you haven't gotten the jist of this story yet, back in '92 we were a part of that eighteen-some percent who voted for Ross Perot. What could have been has been left to the nostalgia of history and is best left alone.

Anyway, there is no sense crying over spilled milk. We can only move forward, and it looks like Perot is still kicking. Since he's an old fave, we want to turn you on to his more recent venture at Perotcharts.com, which provides an excellent resource for analyzing the potential denouement of continuous federal deficit spending here in the U.S.

Perot has the same solid message, but with a decade passed he's using the web rather than those old, blown-up Excel charts he was famous for toting around. His web charts are certainly worth a looksie in the event you'd like to mix your summer Mint Julep with economic statistics. Besides, there's no time like the present to reacquaint ourselves with our nations' fiscal fitness as we move into the coming election season!

Then again, if you really want to freak yourself out, go ahead and watch Perot essentially forecast the future so many years ago when he took on tax reform, eyed over-extended entitlement programs and planned for raising gas taxes to foster infrastructure improvement. Guess it is true that problems don't go away even when we do our darnedest to ignore them.