[Grovenet] A little bit of Bull . . . . . .

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Ha! Great Bob:
 
I asked how it was that handing Americans billions of dollars to use for
consumer spending was going to help our economy since all of that money will
be spent in Asia and Europe where the stuff we buy is made. 

The answer is clear in the news today: America will survive only by carrying
the Asian and European economies on our backs. We must consume enough to
keep the Asians and, to a lesser extent, the Europeans affluent and
prosperous and, somehow, that will make us prosperous too. 

So I have another question. Since we don't make things the world wants to
buy or provide services others want to pay for, how do we pay off all this
debt? Not just domestic debt, but international debt. 

As of this morning, our national debt stands at $9,194,433,955,706 (
<http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/> http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/).
Approximately 1/4 of that debt is in the hands of foreign countries. In
short, they own one quarter of us, our futures and our children's futures.
"They" are the Arabs (including Osama Bin Ladin) and manufacturing moguls
like Sony, Hyundai and a thousand others. 

I've often opined that the President has been given power far beyond those
considered appropriate by our nation's founders. It was just about 100 years
ago that a President was darn near impeached for daring to suggest Congress
pass a specific bill. Until the FDR administration, the President's job was
foreign affairs, not domestic affairs. Both Hoover and Harding before him
spent as little time in Washington as possible  because, as Hoover said,
"The business of America is business" and he echoed the opinions of more 120
years of history when he insisted that the White House should stay out of
it. If anything was needed at home, that was Congress' job. Now we choose
our Presidents largely on what we think they might "ram through" the
Congress on our behalf. 

It seems that now the two responsibilities are now tightly interwoven. To
survive at home we must ensure foreign economies perform in a certain way.
It seems to me that foreign economies and foreigners who can control our
economy are a greater threat than foreign armies or even foreign terrorists.
Indeed, I expect we will soon see a new form of terrorism in the news
headlines: economic terrorism. All the terrorists out there aren't barefoot
religious fanatics hiding in caves, ready to blow themselves and others to
bits. There are some very smart cookies who will find ways to manipulate
international markets to create chaos, loss and confusion. It may already be
under way. 

As we choose a President this year, I believe the ability of that President
to deal effectively with Congress and in a highly-complex, sophisticated
international economic and business environment will be at least as
important as his (or her) ability to commit troops to a firefight or the
strut around on the deck of a carrier proclaiming victory, nor are those two
things independent. 

For example, as the Cuban press was pleased to point out this week, we
haven't won the "war" in Afghanistan. We have barely started it. We, and the
new government we've established there, control only one small part of the
country. The bulk of Afghanistan is still in the hands of the Taliban -
those folks supposedly vanquished years ago. And, as many observe, it was
trying to win a war in Afghanistan that forced the Soviet Union into
bankruptcy and political collapse. 

Are we so much stronger than they?  That bull doesn't look so hot. And it's
interesting that the bear is also the symbol of the old Soviet Union. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Bob Browning
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:29 PM
To: Grovenet
Subject: [Grovenet] A little bit of Bull . . . . . .



	
C2008 CartoonArts International/CWS	

bob "Ole'" browning



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