- History seems about to repeat itself. President Bush's
father waged war against Iraq and soared in the popularity polls, only
to be defeated for re-election by a campaign slogan - "It's the economy,
stupid."
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- Now the son seems determined to wage war against Iraq,
is scoring high in the polls, yet is ignoring the economy, which has reached
a dangerous stage of decay. In the past two years, $8.4 trillion of wealth
has vanished in the stock market. The only other period of time in which
so many bad months were recorded was in 1929-32. Do you honestly think
that with $8.4 trillion lost, this economy is going to snap back? I don't.
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- Just how badly out of kilter the economy is was indicated
by a paragraph from a story that appeared recently in The Observer, a British
newspaper. The headline stated: "Global crash fears as German bank
sinks." The first paragraph said:
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- "Stockbrokers around the world are braced for a
potentially calamitous week as alarm mounts over a looming, Thirties-style
global financial crisis. A leaked email about the credit-worthiness of
Commerzbank, Germany's third largest bank, yesterday increased fears of
the international stock market malaise exploding into a fully-fledged banking
crisis. Commerzbank lost a quarter of its value last week, raising the
specter of Credit-anstalt, the Austrian bank that collapsed in 1931, sparking
global depression."
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- In the United States, Ford Motor Co. is worried sick
that its creditworthiness will be downgraded. Last year, it lost $5.7 billion,
and it is in debt to the tune of $157 billion. A bad rating of its corporate
bonds would be disastrous. In Japan, a looming banking crisis is unfolding.
Argentina's economy has crashed. Brazil, in no great shape itself, is on
the verge of electing a leftist government. In the United States, there
are a lot more layoffs still being announced than there are new jobs being
created.
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- The president, however, continues to make cowboy-style
threats against foreigners and is seemingly unaware of the looming economic
crisis. Repeated administration statements that "the economy is fundamentally
sound" can also be found on microfilm in the newspapers published
in 1929. When politicians keep saying the economy is fundamentally sound,
it isn't. It is simply a pathetic attempt to explain away bad news and
avoid responsibility.
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- Terrorism, despite the shock of Sept. 11, 2001, seems
to me to be less of a problem than the sinking economy and an administration
that appears increasingly both unintelligent and unperceptive. It is interesting
that while President Bush was proclaiming that Americans would not live
in fear, referring to a foreign dictator unable to reach us with any weapons,
people in the Washington area were living in fear of a nut with a rifle.
Most American Muslims are living in fear of an attorney general who seems
to be the legal equivalent of Jerry Falwell, an ignorant and anti-Muslim
bigot.
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- Federal deficits, huge trade imbalances, overproduction,
layoffs, corporate and Wall Street corruption, enormous piles of private
and public debt and a looming global recession, if not a depression, present
a much-greater threat to the American people than some bearded fanatic
hiding in the mountains of Pakistan or a megalomaniac living in the ruins
of Baghdad. Yet the president seems intent on pursuing a war in the Middle
East that can only have negative consequences for an economy already under
stress.
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- The president needs to boot the neoconservative fanatics
and Zionists out of his administration and find some wise Americans to
give him advice. He is heading down the wrong road, and even though he
will pay for it at the next presidential election, that will be no consolation
to the rest of us. The president is like the pilot of an airplane. All
the passengers have to hope and pray he's successful.
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- © 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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- http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20021016/index.php
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