Empire On "E"

[col. writ. 9/24/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

In a matter of months, a new man will take the oath of office for the presidency.

Whether he is the oldest in history, or the first Black one, of one thing we may be certain.

He will be hobbled by a sea of red ink, and therefore bereft of most of the resources to bring his campaign promises to reality.

For as the fires continue to rage throughout the financial markets, they will turn tax returns into smoke.

Don't expect any of them to tell you this, but you can rest assured that all of them know it. And if the office of the Imperial presidency will be strapped for resources, what of average folks?

As an old saying (sorta) goes, 'stuff rolls downhill.'

As businesses tighten up, credit tightens up, and spending tightens up.

This economy (as even the Mad Prince Bush has urged) relies on consumption, or shopping, to function. Anything that weakens this process has a whiplash effect throughout the economy.

Earlier this year, American financier George Soros announced, shortly after the failure of the economic talks at Davos, Switzerland, that the U.S. economy has reached a new stage marking an end of the era. "The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom", Soros explained, adding, "It's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency."

Soros made these observations in January of 2008.

Things have obviously gotten considerably worse since then. The economy is increasingly coming under state control, and social wealth is being aggregated to protect private capital.

What created this crisis was rampant crony capitalism, and unless that is addressed by deep structural transformation, these problems will only worsen.

That is virtually inevitable.

Just as the White House saddled the next administration with disasters in foreign policy, they have effectively stolen the public purse.

So, ultimately, it won't matter who gets elected, because he'll be too broke to do anything.

--(c) '08 maj

[Source: Landler, Mark, "U.S. Policies Evoke Scorn at Davos: Fed Caved In to the Markets (Or Maybe it Dawdled), Critics Say, " New York Times, Thurs., Jan. 24, 2008, p.C9]