An editorial I have wanted to write for several years is "America at the Crossroads." That might sound like a bit of MSM hokum but we truly were at a crossroads. Simply put, American could become more Asiatic and compete with Japan, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, et al. Or we could throw in the towel and become more European. We could celebrate our has been status, our economic underachievement, our sloth. We could celebrate our green sanctimony and our conspicuous compassion and do nothing almost as well as our European cousins. Let the Asians do all the work.
That editorial is a dream deferred. I was doing blogs but nothing remotely political. So America slept while I let my "Crossroads" simmer on the back burner. As I waited, America fled the crossroads. With the election of Obama, America gunned a trail down the Euro Highway leaving our glorious past in a cloud of dust.
Yesterday, Monday May 18, 2009, The Dow rose about 2%. Meanwhile, the Nifty (India's version of the Dow. Got to love that name.) rose 17%. Granted, India is coming off a recent election. But the nature of markets is such that a rally in Japan will be felt to a lesser degree in China and in Europe and in the US. The Dow rose largely in reaction to India's rally. And like a bunch of Euros who contented themselves with crumbs all those years as America feasted, we Americans now settled for crumbs.
Such will be the trend. Asia and Eastern Europe will prosper. Western Europe will affect a sense of superiority and pseudosophistication for not working as hard as the Asians. Ze stupid ant cannot comprehend ze smart grassahopper. What will America do? Americans will mimic their stylish European cousins and will look foolish in the process.
We thought that maybe someday we would be has beens, if we let our guard down. But I for one did not know that we would embrace that status as a badge of honor. I did not think that we would select leaders who would hasten the process. I did not think we would commit economic suicide. But America is fast becoming a distant memory as we race deeper into the land of minute growth and double digit unemployment.
The question now seems to be, "Can we find our way back to the crossroads?"
No comments:
Post a Comment