Friday, February 15, 2008

Recession, or Depression!

It is not the economy, stupid, as we have seen in our article of January 15. It is our irresponsible and spinelss Congress. Forget the White House. They have been in a denial stage for the last five years, still does not know what a recession is, still does not realize there is a real world outside our borders, still trying to find out the meaning of global warming.

The package of $165 billion is not the solution, but part of the problem. We are doing exactly the opposite of what should be done: raise interest rate, encourage savings, stop wasting taxpayers money in Iraq, cut the deficits and spendings, stop borrowing abroad, find incentives to create the jobs of tomorrow.

Easy to say. Yes, but the first step, is precisely to take a first step, and show the world we can start managing our own chaos at home and abroad. If we want to increase our exportations, we should stop boycotting the world, expecially lecturing other countries about things we do not practice at home.

More than a year ago, we have talked about the collapse of our dollar, and the consequences. See, our following articles:

November 2: Best places in the world to do business (we are down to 9th place, from 4)

October 5 and 8: Congress is losing precious time (1 + 2), and not fixing our credit crisis

September 25: We export insults, ignorance and incompetence

September 13: Bernanke, not better than Bush

August 20: Our declining American Brands

June 14: Our collapsing Value

How many more wake-up calls before the Congress stand up, and be counted. Hope this time the people will be smarter, and make sure not to re-elect representatives and senators who supported the Cheney-Bush fiasco, at all possible levels.

When we have the presidential candidate for the Republican party mentioning that winning in Iraq (winning what?) is more important than the economy, combined with 30% of the population who still believe that Bush is doing a great job, we are in real troubles, and I feel sorry for the next generation.

McCain proclaims himself an expert in economy, because he attended a series of meetings on economic matters, and we have a large segment of the population who dares to trust him. There is a big difference between 25 years of experience, and 25 years of the same experience. In other words, he is now an expert after confirming, before, he knew nothing about economy.

The real question is not: "are we in a recession?" but, "are we getting into a recession". The real world knows the answer to the first question, but the Congress and Republicans. Unfortunately, if nothing is done, and done drastically, NOW, the American Empire will become the Titanic of this new century. Gone our prestige, influence, military power and business supremacy.

Where are the smart, short-sighted, and narrow-minded people who were laughing at us, last Summer? We need more than courage in politics....we need a leader with clairvoyance.....and less ignorance and arrogance.

The Facilitator