The Ugly Truth

In the current debate about which candidate will be better suited to take office on day one, lately, I'm getting the feeling that it will hardly matter who gets the job. As our economy continues to deteriorate, and our personal and national debt continues to rise, when the newly elected President goes into the oval office on that first day, and opens the national check book to pay for universal health care, or orders the first wave of American troops to get in their Hummers to begin the trip home from Iraq, they might find that the money to fund these ambitious projects does not exist. Instead of moving the country forward, I'm afraid that the next President will have to deal with the fallout from this last decade of squandered American resources. The time for hope will have to wait, instead, the next Administration will be scrambling to put out fires from a badly neglected infrastructure, and run around applying band-aides to an economy that is bleeding capital every day.

The American financial sector is in crisis. One of our biggest banks, Citigroup, is practically out in the streets begging for capital. They are raising money from Sovereign Wealth Funds, namely the ones who have made all of their money from our oil addiction, Dubious Debt from places like Dubai. Nations who have bought our currency, such as China and Japan will probably suffer as much as we will from the devaluation of the dollar, and will eventually place their faith in a more stable currency such as the Euro. If countries like China and Japan call in their loans, and we are not able to pay, I'm not sure what the future will look like, but I'm pretty sure we will not be able to afford health care for everyone, we might not even be able to afford lunch at McDonalds. Maybe the only good news is that we certainly won't be able to afford the war in Iraq, or any other war of choice that the Republicans, should they win the election, might choose to begin.

The drain of capital from this once prosperous nation is alarming. And as the US economy hits the skids, all of the world now linked in this global economy will share our pain.

Maybe whoever wins the 2008 Presidential election should not be congratulated, but consoled.

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