Sounding The Economy Alarm

Suddenly everyone is talking about how bad the economy is doing. Most American workers have felt it at the pump or the grocery store. Many of us have been cutting back on nonessentials since the first rumblings back in May. Today however a noticeable change has taken place. The President of the United States of America has pushed the panic button. Even Senator McCain got in on the action by suspending his campaign and canceling Friday’s debate. I’m pretty sure he’s going to regret that move.  

On the television and radio the economy is the topic of the day. Here in California the Governor is threatening lawmakers with cutting their pay for not passing budgets. Mayor Villaraigosa is talking about a 120 million dollar budget deficit.  What has really changed in the last few days? The answer is…. President Bush pushed the panic button.   

I remember while on vacation in Tahiti in 1994 a woman from Club Med rang the church bell as a joke. Suddenly villagers ran out into the streets to see what was happening. The rope, just hanging there was too tempting to pass up. She was the center of attention. She said she didn’t expect it to be that loud. That’s what this reminds me of. 

President Bush has never shown much mastery of domestic issues. Like his father before him he always tried to convince a weary public that the economy was expanding, when all indications were that it wasn’t.  If he seemed out-of-touch it was because he was optimistic when everyone knew better. Remember his astonishment at hearing gas would soon hit $4 per gallon. Imagine an oil-man being unaware of the price of a gallon of gas. Everyone else was only too familiar with the pain at the pump. 

This time however is different. He looked more like a sweaty Richard Nixon than a calm John F. Kennedy. His insistence that the market would suffer without passage of his bailout dared naysayers to dig in their heels to find out. 

A friend emailed his congressman to express his opposition to the bailout. I did the same thing. In fact I called the congressman’s office as well. If you took the Presidential Address as a call to action I would like to hear from you. I’m glad I made my son watch the Presidential Address. This was an historic event. Presidents don’t usually risk an all out panic. 

Presidential Address Marks Panic

Munching on Bagel-Bites and tator tots we watched what just might be the most historic primetime address by the worst president of all time. 

George W. Bush looked nervous; almost in a panic as he stared into the teleprompter reading his canned lines. His forehead and nose were crinkled like a guy on a sunny beach with no sunglasses. 

Bush accepted zero responsibility for eight years of runaway spending and wholesale deregulation of financial markets. There was no apology. He blamed you the American worker for purchasing homes you could not afford. He blamed faulty lending rules and greedy mortgage bankers. Everyone is to blame it seems but his administration. 

He issued dire warnings about what could happen in the coming weeks to American workers if his plan was not put in place.  “The entire economy is in danger right now,” he warned. “Millions of Americans could lose their jobs.”  Money market funds could evaporate, banks could stop lending, stocks could tumble, the value of your house could disappear, seniors stand to lose everything they have, unless that is………. you give 700 billion dollars to one man with the power to do with it as he sees fit, with no oversight.  That’s his plan. No really. That’s his plan. I’m not making this up….. 

This was not the cocky, angry George W. Bush we’ve all come to expect. This was a tense Bush, with out something to fall back on like “patriotism” or “the war on terror.” “The market is not functioning properly” he added. “Not passing this emergency plan would cost more later.”  

More than 700 billion dollars? I doubt it. 

This is the same guy who warned us about the weapons of mass destruction. The same guy who told us the energy spikes in the weeks before the Enron scandal were caused by California not building enough power plants. The same guy who said, “You’re doing a heck of a job Brownie.” Either he’s the boy who cried wolf or the emperor with no clothes. Either way, you can’t trust him.