The world economy as we know it is going down
As the 2007 economic collapse picks up speed, it’s time to take a hard look at the performance of the U.S. national political leadership in meeting some of their most fundamental responsibilities. It’s time to face the fact of serious failure over the last quarter century.
During this time, the leaders of both political parties and of major institutions such as the Federal Reserve have presided over the abandonment of some of the most solemn obligations of constitutional government. They have done this in order to embrace an agenda favorable mainly to the financial, corporate, and government elites.
On January 20, 1981, a full generation ago, President Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural address, “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.”
Reagan was both right and wrong.
The problem the U.S. was facing then was the collapse of the nation’s manufacturing base through a recession that happened when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to over the twenty percent level. It did so almost a decade after President Richard Nixon removed the gold peg for the dollar, leading to the inflation of the 1970s when our currency flooded world markets through the oil trade.
Reagan’s statement that “government is the problem” was correct to the extent that failed financial policies and the out-of-control actions of a Federal Reserve beholden to private financial interests combined in the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression to wreck the world’s greatest industrial powerhouse.
But he was wrong in thinking that the solution was deregulation of the economy, particularly deregulation of financial and investment institutions which took place during his two terms. The result was enormous growth in the power and influence of Wall Street and the big banks over the rest of the economy. The era of leveraged mergers, acquisitions, and buyouts was the predecessor of the disaster of today with the unfolding fiasco of equity, hedge, and derivative funds in the process of collapse.
After Reagan came President George H.W. Bush. By the end of his term, the loss of manufacturing jobs had produced another recession. Within a couple of years of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, action by Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin to strengthen the dollar attracted enough foreign investment to create the dot.com bubble.
Clinton then cut the federal budget enough by reducing federal employment that he was able to achieve a budget surplus. This lessened the drag on the economy from the national debt which Reagan had left behind from his tax cuts and trillion dollar military build-up. But the over-leveraged dot.com bubble burst with the stock market collapse of 2000, leaving us in recession again.
Enter President George W. Bush. Despite the “achievement” of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in creating another bubble—the housing one—big enough to float the U.S. economy for four consecutive years—2002 to 2005—the economic fundamentals today are horrendous. We are living in an economy that has begun to crash, with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and Congress cobbling together bail-outs of various descriptions which they hope will right what is obviously a sinking ship.
We can only hope they will succeed to some extent, because it would be heartless to wish disaster on the ones who suffer the most from the consequences of the greed and stupidity of people in power—namely the ordinary people who work for a living and who honestly try to raise their families and hold to a decent standard of living. But life is becoming very hard for the vast majority of Americans who have been bearing the brunt of our failed economic and monetary polices of the last three decades.
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Thursdays February 19th was President Obama’s first visit to Canada, where he was warmly welcomed by the people as well as Prime Minister Steven Harper. During the visit Obama met with Canada’s first black governor general, Michaëlle Jean. He also stopped by an Ottawa Market to buy Canadian Maple Leaf cookies, and was reportedly looking for a snow globe for his daughters. ottawa.ctv.ca www.ctv.ca www.ctv.ca ______
I hear Harper collects Kenny G records and thinks old people should work for ever!
LOL at “YES WE CANADA”
The United States guarantees the stability and prosperity the world has. Canada should be part of the United States, instead of a second rate world player, so that the U.S. could better utilise Canada’s resources to this end. The two countries never should have been separated into two entities. We have the same culture. Canada should become part of the United States in the interest of a better world.
Marx is not the founder of socialism he is the ofunder of Marxiosm which turned into Communism, they are not the same thing. A socialist is not anything close to a Marxist
Being liberal is not the same as communist
bush started wars with other nations obama is trying to clean up the mess and make more allies i love paroke obama think im american?nope!hey ud be suprised how many people like ur presedent
8:33-8:37…that would have been a priceless picture
Power to the people.
long live Canada – US relations!!!
If you'll email me your address, I'll mail you a shirt.
Because Jews own the banks banks control the money.
Who's the moron who said there is a large Jewish population in the US, less than 5% of this nation identify themselves as Jewish. There are more Filipinos in this nation than Jews why don't we pander to the Filipino vote
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In politics, a chief of staff is the primary aide to a political leader or position.
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.
The duties of the White House Chief of Staff vary greatly from one administration to another. However, he/she is responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the President's schedule, and deciding who is allowed to meet with the President. Because of these duties, the Chief of Staff has at various times been dubbed "The Gatekeeper" and "The co-President".
Any country is passing from democracy to comunism. Socialist presidents are beeing elected but any of them is ending with democracy. Chávez was reelected president of Venezuela in a world-wide recognized election. Including the United States recognized the Venezuelan election as beeing democratic. And is too soon to say that Latin America is turning to socialism, those leaders were elected only a few years ago, many presidents in Latin America are still right-wing. 10 years ago almost all presidents of Latin America were from the right-wing. Things change, today is the socialist wave, tomorrow may be another wave. And the US don't has the moral right to care about Latin America, why do you care so much with us? Leave us alone. Anti-Americanism is the main fuel of leftism in Latin America.
The Republicans are the conservatives. The Democrats are the liberals. Actually about 40% of the electorate here considers themselves Independent and these are the voters who will decide the election. Some states do not require you to declare a party affiliation. In those states all registered voters can vote for any candidate of either party. Some states have "closed primaries" which means you must be a registered Republican or Democrat and you can only vote for the slate of candidates in the party of your registry. The "closed primary" states have this rule supposedly because some voters of another party would deliberately try to get a weak candidate of another party to win the primary.
Because the vast majority of Yahoo answers participants are American. When there aren't enough questions about foreign politics, more American politics questions appear.
elephant- republican party
donkey- democratic party