Bush ponders and the economy slides into recession

Newspapers showed a picture of George W. Bush in a pose of studied vacuity as he pondered whither the US economy. In a twangy imitation of Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss, the economy had strengths, it was doing well despite some minor setbacks. In short, everything was business as usual. But was it? The floor sank under the New York Stock Exchange as the Dow fell 256,64. The market has not been able to shake off the 2008 blues; in fact the S&P and Nasdaq composite sank, too. Why? The government reported a hike in unemployment in December--a holiday month which should have seen an increase in workers taken on by employers. The pundits predicted some 70.000 new jobs but it turns out that around 18.000 found new employment, which, translated in to per centages which bean counters like very much, means off the mark by more than 70 per cent of the predicted figure! So if you didn't think the US was slipping into recession, and it is and has, these numbers weigh heavily on that assertion. And Bush looks muddle into the middle distance as to what to do. Not very much. He's not handled the subprime meltdown well. His genius of a Wall Street whiz kid at the Treasury Hank Paulson believes in voluntary measures. Read the fat cats of finance ain't going to do much unless you hold their uncalloused feet to the fire. Bush & his crowd of fat wallets think only of what's good for them, and the little people and the country go to the dogs which is going at a clip which the blind economists cannot see. Bush's crowd is made up of cronies, incompetents, the parvenus rich, the scam artists, and the ideologically committed to 18 century solutions. So Bush contemplates his navel as the American economy falters. Already the rotting fish of Wall Street are selling black souls of theirs to foreign countries and banks; as for business, take chemicals, very few of America's chemical makers are owned by Americans. Everything is for sale. And jobs, well they are outsourced abroad, and now the manufactured goods are coming to the US from there to. But the factories unsurprisingly, are outsourced American arms. Consumerism Mr Bush is dead now, everyone is scrambling to pinch pennies for higher oil and food and health costs. And there you are comfortable and cosy sitting on inherited wealth thinking of what's to be done. Another war? Your guns have brought little butter to American tables. Now Americans have a vague taste of what it was to have an incompetent like Herbert Hoover in the White House as deep recession than depression hit the US and the world. Where has FDR, our Joe Damaggio gone?