December 11, 2008
Welcome Aboard the Titanic, Mr. Obama
Imagine yourself as being aboard the Titanic
in the first few moments following its
chance encounter with an iceberg. An
announcement comes across the ship’s public
address system: “Attention passengers. We
wish to inform you that this ship is no
longer under the command of the incompetent
schmuck who got us into this mess. Instead,
we have appointed a new captain of uncommon
skill and unquestioned valor and honor, the
ideal steward for a vessel such as this. So
please relax and enjoy the remainder of your
trip, and thanks for choosing Cunard Lines
for your transatlantic travel needs.”
Meanwhile, you watch as water floods through
the massive gash in the ship’s hull, and
feel it listing to the side. Do you give up
your seat in the life raft and return to
your stateroom?
How ironic it is that now that America has a
president-elect it can afford to be proud of
again, and now that there is some promise
that the federal juggernaut will once again
be in the hands of a capable and sturdy
helmsman, America itself seems to be poised
to sink like a stone. Barack Obama is about
to take command of a badly, perhaps fatally,
damaged ship of state and national economy,
and despite our best wishes for our new
captain and our confidence in his innate
abilities, it would appear to be well past
time to launch the lifeboats and start
rowing. One minor problem: The lifeboats do
not exist.
Ah, the joys of life in the newly globalized
economy. As the Dow Jones Industrial Average
sinks into the primordial muck, the FTSE,
the Hang Seng and other indices from Moscow
to Mumbai to Beijing follow along in
lemminglike lockstep. Time was when a single
intrepid nation – say, the post-World War II
U.S., for example, left unscathed by the
bombs that had leveled Dresden, Tokyo and
Coventry – could assume a de facto
leadership role in shepherding the rest of
the world out of the economic wilderness.
But who is there to take the lead this time?
China, hitherto seen as the next global
economic powerhouse, seems to be on
especially shaky ground, dependent upon
exports of cruddy consumer items to waning
western economies and with its currency
chained to the boat-anchor of the U.S.
dollar. Western Europe is witnessing the
same bank failures, shriveling economies and
other economic ills we are. And there’s no
reason to even think about the Russians,
who’ve slathered a blanket of corruption
atop their own house-of-cards economy, just
to keep things interesting.
Just about everybody realizes that times are
bad in America, but it seems that few seem
ready to acknowledge just how bad.
There aren’t many people left who remember
the Depression of the 1930s, but the perfect
storm of housing, banking, monetary and
employment implosions currently facing the
incoming administration could well make that
earlier catastrophic contraction seem like a
hiccup in comparison. One interesting
metric: Were official unemployment figures
still computed in the same way now as they
were in the 1930s, we would already
be approaching the same dire numbers,
before the economy has fully bottomed
out. One can only wonder how bad
unemployment will be then – and shudder.
Despite his talents and capabilities and the
strength of the team with which he has
surrounded himself, it is unrealistic to
expect Barack Obama to be a miracle worker.
The real pain of the Bush Depression has yet
to be felt. The true tragedy of that
depression, apart from the incalculable
human toll wrought upon American families,
is that what stood to become a truly
transformative administration able to wholly
reshape the American government into a model
for 21st Century statecraft
stands to be hobbled sufficiently that it is
reduced to simple, capable stewardship of a
doomed vessel that it must somehow limp into
port.
If Obama is successful even in accomplishing
that, his legacy of greatness will be
assured.
©
2008 North Star Writers Group. May not
be republished without permission.
Click here to talk to our writers and
editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.
To e-mail feedback
about this column,
click here. If you enjoy this writer's
work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry
it.
This
is Column # DBL034.
Request permission to publish here.
