TheMillerCircle.org

There is no other way to put it: we are in a financial melt-down that is mind-boggling to watch, yet quite predictable when you consider what we have been doing in the last decade or so to keep ourselves economically feasible. The last two economic “surges” have been bubbles made of bubble gum. First the dot com bubble, followed by the current housing bubble, the collapse of which has put us in our current fix and permanently shrunk Wall Street. It has been a very long time since our financial markets were investing in things that actually did the American people much good. The country did not, is not and will not prosper by these fictitious bubbles that grow to a certain size, and then, like the inevitable sphere formed by blowing bubblegum–burst! And when they burst, people get hurt and the public pays a fortune to save the hurters. The collapse of the current housing bubble could spread in ways that are frightful to think about. It’s now a question of whether consumer confidence will retract enough to put us in a very painful and long-lasting downturn from which recovery could be long and challenging.

Well, someone else besides us is also thinking about our economic problems. It turns out that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the organization that examines the economy of other countries and makes loans in exchange for very stringent changes demanded in the loanees economy, has decided to examine the financial health of the United States and the U.S. Treasury has apparently agreed to have this examination take place, presumably beginning in the next few months. In lieu of all the other traumas that are going on around us, this little bit of news seems like a distraction at the moment. Yet, since we tend to be the country that hands out financial advice to every other country, it will seem odd to some, perhaps embarrassingly so for GW Bush, that we are going to be recipients of that kind of examination and perhaps have to listen to advice that we thought would never have to come our way. Maybe the examiners should talk specifically to the Republican Party and GW Bush, since, in many ways, this is their party. We will have to listen to other experts tell us what’s wrong with our economy and what we should do to fix it. Do you wonder what kind of grade our economy will get?
I have little faith in the IMF as an institution, since one of it’s major missions seems to be the maintenance of the global market economy that has always been heavily tilted to the West (you must lower your trade barriers, but those of older economies must get grandfathered in and will not be changed; you must reduce your social costs (you get the picture)).
One think is for sure, as Steve Fraser tells it, we are witnessing the end of one Gilded Age! Maybe we can start thinking about things that really matter and begin to invest in project that make us a healthier country. Anyone who serves as the guarantor of last resort should insist on a powerful voice in the choice of things in which to invest. Don’t you agree? If so, what is at the top of your list? I’ll bet we have very similar lists. But how does GW prepare himself for these kinds of troubling financial meltdowns? Have you noticed how little you see of him in this crisis? Perhaps the public now understands what a truly destructive non-entitity he always was. Yet, to pursue the problem, GW must prepare for war with a military that is breaking us but is structured such that, when coupled with the “Bush Doctrine” of anti-terrorism, allows us to declare war with anyone at anytime.