Mangled Economics in Democratic America

America is very fortunate. Fortunate that at the time of the current economic crisis there are no other superpowers remaining in this world. The Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, Russia is just beginning to stand on its own two feet, and China isn’t strong enough yet. No one out there can destroy America. If there was at least one worthy competitor in the whole world – this country would have immediately become dependent, bought out to its core, and claiming nothing, based on the fact that its “green papers” would be worthless to everyone. There is no Nikita Sergeyevich [Khrushchev], who, without a moment’s hesitation, would deliver “the final and decisive” attack on the enemy that is as vulnerable as ever.

America is not just a financial bankrupt, whose debts have long ago exceeded the value of its assets. This country has now suffered the biggest ideological fiasco in recent history (and the U.S. does not have an ancient history). Market values, the famous “private initiative,” freedom and democracy – all proved to be mangled by reality. In a word: mangled-economics.

Indeed, what’s happening? Having driven the country into the deepest debt hole, and having built the largest financial pyramid in history, the Bush administration realized that the only way to escape is to forget about freedom and democracy. The White House invited America to do what it mercilessly criticized, and why it often bombed and ruined other countries: To introduce the dictatorship of financial authorities, to nationalize the most important companies, to buy up all and everything, after pouring into the economy 700 billion dollars.

And these measures, possibly, would have helped Wall Street. But here’s the problem – America is a democracy. And Congress, controlled by political opponents of Bush, doesn’t let it pass the necessary bills. Not because these measures are bad. Simply, they contradict democratic values. Meanwhile for Bush’s opponents the worse things get – the better it is. These guys couldn’t care less that the country’s economy is falling apart, because for them approval ratings are more important. It’s fair, and no one will condemn them, because this is the foundation of American ideology – victory at any cost. This is the other side of democracy.

What is the result? Congress was too cheap to pay 700 billion dollars, and instantly, the country lost nearly one-and-a-half trillion due to the sharpest in history (again, recent history) drop of the stock market. This immediately struck Europe, Asia, and Russia. That is how the failure of the American “democratic” government system to take swift anti-crisis measures emptied out wallets of millions of investors worldwide. And the investors are currently radically changing their attitude towards America as the main component of the global financial system, the guarantor of stability.

Now everything will be different. To become a superpower once again, the U.S. needs either a miracle or a war. Infact, after the Great Depression the U.S. economy recovered not at all due to the construction of new roads, as is customary to believe. Back then, gold rivers flowed across the ocean from Europe, occupied by World War II. All European wars brought to America unthinkable profit, and it is precisely because of them that the dollar became the main, and for a long time, the only reserve currency. Now, thank goodness, we’re not expecting a war in Europe, despite all the efforts of the U.S. to shake up the political situation here. It did not succeed in “firing up” the Caucasus, and even the operation in Iran was foiled by the foolish actions of the micro-dictator Saakashvili. So, investors will not flee from Europe into America.

Asia is no help either. On several occasions, the U.S. authorities have been able to “kick out” capital from Asia, creating artificial crises, or inflating stories of avian flu or atypical pneumonia (SARS). These tricks do not work anymore, because not a single normal capitalist will take away money from calm Hong Kong and move it to panic-stricken New York, even if they’ll frighten him with some new “atypical angina.”