the responsibility of the person in the Oval Office is to oversee, day by day, a vast, multidimensional international system, one in which economic, security and social problems are all intertwined and must be balanced against each other. It is a mind-bogglingly complex job, the hardest task in the world.After ranting about inability of Palin / McCain he mentions that for Obama "until his campaign, he's never run an organization bigger than the Harvard Law Review or his Senate office." The whole country has suddenly lurched from concentrating on Iraq to doing a massive bailout. No one seems capable of concentrating on two problems at the same time.
The smartest people on Wall Street and in Washington know that the real targets of these bailouts are not the U.S. investment banks and insurance companies, and the intended beneficiary is not the U.S. financial system per se. They are the foreign funds, the "sovereign wealth funds," that keep America's financial system afloat by giving us the money fixes that allow us to continue our rampant consumerism at zero savings rates. Unless these funds get reassurance, the great game is over. So is our long period of growth and power.This made me think about the idea that many -- including one or two of my friends -- have that the Gulf Arabs are all screaming around in their air-conditioned Hummers and Range Rovers while good hard-working Americans are lining up to buy $4 gasoline for their Ford pickups and Dodge minvans. Actually things are far from that simple.
Yes, I agree that it is outrageous that there are so many desert dwellers living in incredible luxury while teaming populations just across the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea are fighting for scraps and suffering from every disease know to man. But certainly that is only a few degrees worse than the fat North Americans living off the work of the teaming masses across both the Rio Grande and the Pacific Ocean.
Americans have no more inherent right to live in luxury than Arabians do. The USA does have great intellectual capital but recent events hardly prove that population in general has great intelligence or knowledge. The US is now a net importer of oil and most natural resources. So how can they claim to have a natural right to superior wealth and standard of living. Why should the world bail them out?
Of course as a Canadian observer I should hardly claim superiority over the population to the south.
I hardly have a superior preferred share claim on wealth and luxury myself. (I managed to spend $2000 on gas for my Hyundai this past summer). I am just a Cassandra pointing out an example of wrong thinking. If I ever get some good ideas how to change things for the better I will be glad to happily pass them along without charge.
