Avoiding Cliffs

THE BIG QUESTION we americans are being asked, it seems by anybody who's anybody, concerns whether we are better off now than we were four years ago. Somehow it rings a bell, faintly. Didn't we hear that in the fall, say, of nineteen eighty?

It isn't an easy question to answer, and includes a lot of subjective analysis. What, for instance, if you happen to have a great deal more money now than four years ago, but poor health?  Some people are doubtless better off than they were four years ago, and others unfortunately not, while still other people might be doing about the same.

The nation as a whole? Probably about the same, give or take a few points here and there.We're all four years older, beyond dispute, and how can that be better?

By pointing to the dead bin laden and the living general motors, obama reminds us that when he took office, america was on the verge of complete financial collapse, and the war on terror was wading through difficult terrain. The improvement in the anti U.S. terrorism situation is that it is no longer nearly as organized, a condition which could change at any time.

On the economic front, when you have corporations like Bank of America, General Motors, Citi  Group - huge, influential, central to the american economy, going bankrupt, all at once, there is obviously tremendous weakness in the overall economy, and high unemployment, inflation, recession, or all of the above, should probably be expected, and are certainly preferrable to total collapse.

Its easy to sit on the sidelines and claim that bush and obama should have simply allowed all these huge companies go through the regular bankruptcy process. Its very difficult to imagine any president, liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, actually letting that happen. It may sound good in talking points, nicely, consistenly conservative, but sometimes free enterprise, when left alone, runs off a cliff, as it did in 1929, and would have again in 2008 without the government bailout.

At least obama can say, we can say, we didn't go off a cliff.

Bb

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