"Campaigning in last year's midterm elections, Obama argued over and over again that Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch; from now going forward, the question will be why he hasn't towed it out."
Karen Tumulty
Washington Post
Aug. 5, 2011
It was almost predictable — except that things are so darn unpredictable these days.
About the only thing that seemed to be predictable last week was the weather — here in north Texas, we're in a potentially record–setting stretch of consecutive 100–degree days.
First the debt ceiling went down to the wire — which a lot of people were predicting. Then the overseas markets began some scary gyrations that spooked the American markets on the eve of the July jobs report. Fewer people were predicting that.
The signals just prior to the jobs report were not promising, and people were understandably nervous about what would happen on Friday, when the report came out and the markets began reacting to it.
Well, the jobs report was better than expected, and stocks got an early bounce from the news — but then things settled into a rocky pattern that capped a volatile week on Wall Street. I guess some people understood that, while it was better than expected, the jobs gains were still far short of what is needed to get the economy on a sound footing.
(Of course, it depends on who is doing the spinning. Democrats are likely to point out that jobs have been added to the economy in each of the last 10 months, which is true. But in most of those months, including the most recent one, the gains weren't even close to what the economy needs to average for several years.
(And Republicans are likely to overlook their prominent role in the making of this economic crisis — and act as if the president is solely to blame.
(Politicians like to blame their rivals for things. It reminds me of a comedy album in the 1970s in which a comedian mimicked an embattled Richard Nixon telling the nation that he was taking full responsibility for the Watergate scandal — but not the blame.
("Let me explain the difference," the comedian/Nixon said. "People who are to blame lose their jobs. People who are responsible do not.")
And then S&P lowered the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+. It's a kind of economic probation, I have heard economic experts say — potentially reversible but only if the U.S. government cleans up its act.
As polarized as the federal government is today, I don't have a lot of hope for that one. It seems to me that what is really needed is presidential leadership. It has been sorely lacking.
Some people disagree with me, and that is fine, but the fact remains that unemployment is higher now than it was when the president took office — and that is what many voters see when they look at this administration's economic record.
I have heard some Obama defenders speak with satisfaction of the recent jobs gains — but the raw numbers say that the unemployment rate went down by the same amount — 0.1% — that it went up the previous month. No real ground has been gained by the economy this summer.
In fact, the decline in the credit rating suggests the opposite. But who knows?
Not much is clear to anyone, least of all the ordinary citizens — especially the ones who have been out of work and just want to be self sufficient, to have at least part of their lives back. They don't care about global politics and foreign economies, but their lives are being affected by them, anyway.
They are the ones for whom leadership is most important right now.
David Gergen knows something about presidential leadership. He worked with four presidents, and he shares, at CNN.com, his thoughts following a recent visit to London, where he saw the Churchill War Rooms.
"On both sides of the Atlantic," he writes, "the turmoil of this past week has sparked cries for those in political power to step up and for God's sake, lead."
His visit to the Churchill War Rooms convinced him that a Churchill is what is needed here.
Churchill's times were uncertain as well, Gergen points out, but he set clear goals and led the march, even if he was marching into a murky future.
"On several walls hang posters from those days: 'Keep Calm & Carry On.' That is very much the spirit that leaders of today need to instill in peoples across the Atlantic," Gergen writes. "They must replace fear with faith in the future."
If that happens, maybe the signals won't seem as mixed.
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First there was Greece, and then the issues of admitting Turkey to the EU, as well as incorporating Poland and the Czech Republic into it as well. These all created greater strain on the European Union's economic outlook. France, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy and Spain are all having poor economic outlooks, high unemployment and are enacting extreme 'austerity' programs, all of which have been ongoing for about 3 years now.
In America, we've been economically hosed since Bush sent all the troops into Afghanistan and then into Iraq. If it weren't for saner minds, I don't doubt that he would have manufactured an excuse to find a way to strike at North Korea, the third party in the Axis of Evil. This sent oil through the roof (which I believe was the idea, actually) and sent our money out the door into the hands of several hundreds of billions of dollars in no bid contracts over the last ten years with no net recapture of economic input.
Wars are the single most destructive force to an economy. It looks like it's a powerful and positive economic thing at first, because a lot of military industrial complex businesses show large profits. They drain the economy in money that goes nowhere productive, they take away skilled people in the workforce (especially since the guard and reserve units were called up in unusually high numbers for this effort, which was completely unnecessary.) Additionally, it drains the spirit of the people and does not do much for the good will of other nations when they see a country acting in such a manner.
Next up, we have an economy already pushing hard into the doldrums since 2007, which was a slight recovery from the brakes being placed on the economy during the dot.com bust in 2000-2001, so there really wasn't a lot of momentum in the first place.
Combine that with all the polarizing sentiment in the US that prevents our government from acting like a responsible adult and enforcing the laws of the land when it comes to our mortgage meltdown, the financial banking meltdown and the destruction of our own liberties in the name of the Patriot Act, which is anything but.
All of this began and was initiated on a Republican watch. It was pretty much given the go ahead through de-regulation and through a complete lack of concern for what effects these things would have not only on the economy, but to the American people as well. It was all in the name of making money for some and leaving everyone and everything else in the lurch.
Doing a great job Dubya, great job.
However, is Obama here to save us? I thought so at first. Now, with his financial administrative cabinet made up of the same people who engineered the financial and mortgage meltdown, I have to say that it's just a horse of a different color meant as another clever distraction to make us think everything's going to be okay -- when it is clearly not.
Since the Oil Gouging, the financial and mortgage meltdowns, nothing has changed. No officials, no folks in the businesses involved in these things has so much as lost their jobs. In fact, the bailout of the banks cost the country over 600 Billion Dollars (pinky to edge of lip in classic Dr. Evil style) through tax coffers and the direct impact on the people. All told, the financial meltdown alone has a worldwide cost to the tune of something close to 4 Trillion Dollars, and that's a conservative estimate.
Could it have been predicted? You bet. There were warning signs and Cassandras aplenty through out this entire debacle. But why didn't the folks with the power and sense do anything to prevent it?
My estimation is that they did nothing, because this is exactly the situation they wished to have. Those folks in the power seats couldn't be happier. We're well on our way to a feudal fascistic society. The downgrading of the American credit rating is nothing more than one more domino in a long chain of such dominoes of someone's complex setup.
What I can't predict for you, is when that group or persons is going to casually flick a wrist and send all those carefully placed dominoes tumbling down along their carefully executed plans.
Again I am no expert on these things. I have eyes and ears, though and I ask questions, I look for news that doesn't jibe and then I look for things that corroborate the things that don't jibe.
We still have a chance to turn things around, but it's going to take a Wake Up Call of Great Magnitude and it's going to require, in my opinion, the relative dismantling of the current two party system and the complete awakening of that centrist majority that really does exist out there in this country.
It's predictable, and I've seen it coming for some time. I've made noises here and there over time, but who's going to listen to a liberal out of work technician with a simple two year degree out here in Texas, one of the more conservative states of the Union?
rated and regards