In today's Wall Street Journal is a great article written by two very credible men with one being the youngest Bush brother, Jeb, former Governor of Florida. No doubt some will simply discount the value and credibility of the writing due to seeing another "Bush" as a co-writer but Jeb was a successful CEO / Governor of Florida and I find the context of the "grand strategy" approach compelling and well targeted. Several short term initiatives are listed as example in the article but the writers are so right ... what is the Big Picture for I certainly do not see it in the execution of this once great nation. From tax codes / shelters to political poison, the landscape is becoming loitered like a bootlegger's property with old cars, animals of all sorts yelping but with plenty of business coming for the fruits of the bootlegger's bounty. That is perhaps a terrible metaphor but I hope you grasp it.
This nation keep shooting itself in the foot with each political poll, each swing of the equity markets; we are stumbling badly. All of this is bad enough but then you add the CRISIS in Europe that is being shrouded by the TV lights of the issues in the UK and the debt ceiling crisis in the US and now, oh just wait for this one, the Commission being named to cut out over a trillion bucks of Fed spending .... just wait! As other editorials are pointing, the fueling issue that is triggering the most fear in the markets is actually less, a little less, about the US eclectic panorama of issues such as the mounting debt but actually the apparent impending collapse of the EU and the EURO that has investors most shaky. Add to that the inflation fears building in China, the fastest growing large economy in the world, and you have an explosive elixir looking for a place to ignite.
I know all of this sounds complicated but, well, it is for we have all had our own shovel in digging this hole we are in as do the Europeans; remember, the post WWII power brokers which more and more is pointing out a harsh but graspable truth ... the political and economic systems established and infrastructured by the US in the reconstruction period following WWII are broken and defunct and screaming for a renaissance. But that rebirth is apparently being driven now by the BRICS and not the 20th century brokers of power with the US at the head of the line. In other words, the "tail is wagging the dog" as this century continues its painful and frightening unfolding with far flung events washing and rolling through the global economy. Oh, by the way, London and Greece are still burning in the torment of the reality of austerity; you know, that thing which happens when people realize time is passed to right the monetary wrongs of the past ... our time for that is impending nearer I believe.
So, the reticules of the world's souring economic engines are Greece, Italy, the US, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, some of the newer EU members such as Poland and the list grows. Why? For we have all spent too much for too long on somebody else's loaned money. Now what we have is a world swollen in debt sold to other debt bloated nations financed in large part by the BRICS. What an array of concern and thus why the Bush article is so profound, pertinent and purposed. So, then, what is our grand strategy; more of the same?
A great friend once told me that if you do what you have always done you will get what you have always gotten. The Commission established to cut over a trillion dollars in Federal spending is, for me, with three of the twelve now named is exactly that. Reid, for his contribution to the "Fat Cutting Team" has named his three great cheerleaders in Kerry, Baucus and Murray; the same three that are always at the microphones behind Reid so I refer to the first sentence of this paragraph. While I do not fully agree with the bloc voting of "NO" by the Tea Party, if I were the quarterback and were serious about cutting a trillion plus of Fed spending, I would select ten of the twelve seats from the strongest of the Tea Party "kids" now in Washington and let them lead the charge through gut-tough work to be done. What is shaping up with the Commission is the fox is guarding that hen house so I refer to sentence one of this paragraph. The same people that have put us in this mess are the people to get us out ... don't think so!
So we are off on another day of challenge but in my continuing reading in Psalms in Chapter 107 today, King David again recounts the travails and corrections inflicted on God's people when they would turn from Him. I cannot help but see a clear parallel with the children of Israel in the desert and the Children of today's world wondering through the desert of fear, financial worry and worsening cultural norms. God corrected them and I cannot help but believe we are being provide a "correcting" period to get us to turn back to that same God.
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