I can't believe how silly it is that Obama plays this verbal game of "The fundamentals of the American economy are weak." McCain couldn't even argue well against this, ostensibly because he was too scared or he doesn't believe enough in our system.
The truth is, the fundamentals of our economy are strong, even if Obama mocks this truth. Our unemployment rate is nowhere even near Germany's: 10%, which is considered emergency recessionary levels here in the U.S. (ours is probably inching north of 6.2% now).
Victor David Hanson has an amazing column on RealClearPolitics: America Compared to What? In it, he compares America's recovery prospects with
Europe's.Quotes...
Western Europe is discovering that its banks lent more against their reserves than did their American counterparts. European real estate was often more inflated than our own. Bankers in Frankfurt, London and Paris are looking at trillions of dollars in uncollectible Euro loans throughout Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe. Most of our toxic debt was at least owed as mortgages by fellow Americans; far more of Europe's is owed by those outside the European Union.
Even when the United States is reeling from financial panic, foreign investment continues to flow into America; the dollar, meanwhile, is climbing against the Euro. China's export-driven and Russia's energy economies are in crisis.
The war in Iraq is no longer even a war in a traditional sense. Four times as many Americans were murdered just in the city of Chicago at peace in July than all those Americans who were killed in Iraq at war in the same period.
There are also long-term reasons to believe the United States will better weather the current storm. We are a transparent society that blares out problems, affixes blame and then fights publicly over solutions. Japan's real estate meltdown of the 1990s took years to correct, given the emphasis on secrecy and shame within Japanese financial circles.
The current financial crisis has startled America from a hypnotic trance of self-indulgence and irresponsibility. But as we return to American fundamentals, we may discover that our political, social and economic system -- despite all the current election-cycle hysteria -- is still by far the most resilient in the world.
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