Herman
Cain
Read Herman's bio and previous columns
November 3, 2008
The Fragile Economy and
the New President’s Best Move
The new president can either shorten or prolong our newly entered
recession. Yes, we are in a recession both mentally and technically.
The mental recession started as soon as the Democrats took control of
Congress at the beginning of 2007. They needed the economy to tank to
help their mission of increasing their control of Congress, and trying
to disgrace President George W. Bush.
The Democrats who control Congress have kept their promise of a “new
direction”, but most people did not know it meant backward instead of
forward, just as most people voting against anyone Republican are
ignoring the fact that Democrats control Congress, which has earned one
of the worst approval ratings in history.
The start of the technical recession was officially announced last week
by the Commerce Department. They reported that the gross domestic
product (GDP) fell at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the
July-September period.
It
is highly unlikely that we will avoid negative growth in the last
quarter of this year (October-December) given the current financial
crisis. Thus, we will experience at least two consecutive quarters of
negative GDP growth.
We
are not, however, in an economic depression as many reporters in the
mainstream media and congressional Democrats want you to believe. Our
nation’s financial situation is indeed fragile, but the unprecedented
steps by the Bush Administration will help stabilize things if the
mainstream media, the Democrats in Congress and the new president give
them time to work.
Since the beginning of the financial crisis, the stock market has
exhibited some extreme volatility, but finished the month of October
with an overall 14 percent decline as measured by the Dow Jones
Industrial average. That pales in comparison to the over 80 percent drop
in stock prices during the great depression.
But the new president could put us into a prolonged recession. If he
approves legislation to increase taxes, increase regulations on
businesses or approve further increases in federal spending, he will
have replicated the steps taken by FDR and the misled Congress of the
1930’s.
Those actions drove us into a deep and prolonged economic depression.
That’s why we call it the Great Depression, in a bad way, not in a good
way.
The new president’s best economic moves for the next two years would be
to do nothing except for one thing: Eliminate the automatic repeal of
the current tax rates. If he does not convince the Congress to do so,
the new Great Depression will be unavoidable.
One only has to take off their “who to blame” glasses and objectively
examine the current economic and financial crisis. Sadly, the current
congressional leaders are objectively challenged.
The new president will not be the choice of approximately half the
voters, because of another close presidential election. However, the
sooner we get through the disappointment if our preferred candidate does
not win, the sooner we can start focusing on the will of the people,
which is and has always been to move forward.
Let’s pray that the new president does not have a new definition of
forward.
Congratulations Mr. President! Let’s hope so.
© 2008 North Star
Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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