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Europe may be on the edge of a new recession. Greece may default, weakening banks throughout the continent. Unemployment remains critically high in some countries. The jobless rate is 20 percent in Spain, double that for the young. Moody’s has downgraded Italy’s credit rating three notches. Even Germany has slowed down — although it, alone, is seeing employment increase.
A sick Europe infects the United States and that’s why the stock market drops here when economic woes increase across the Atlantic.
I bring this up for a misery-loves-company reason: North America isn’t the only nation with money worries. And the U.S. government has plenty of company in being unable to turn its economy around.
With a presidential race set to get under way in earnest in a few short weeks, Republicans and Democrats alike should think on these things:
Fact one: this is not an Obama recession. This is a western world recession. Defeating Barack Obama in 2012 will not end the recession.
Fact two: excessive debt, personal as well as public, created the bubbles that burst. The debt was not created because the nation moved toward one or another set of partisan political principles. The national debt grew under presidents of both parties, as did private debt. Public debt grew because the people demanded more from government than they were willing to pay for. The same grasshopper philosophy encouraged people to contract to buy more than their incomes could retire.
Fact three: all of us are in this together. We will get out of it faster if we work at it together. No superman candidate will save us. Any partisan victory or defeat that drives Americans further apart will weaken the nation.
Don’t ever believe you have all the answers. Listen to the other guy. Study. Learn. Reason.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
