Two decades ago, Bill Clinton famously kept himself on message in his successful bid to unseat President George H.W. Bush by repeatedly invoking the phrase: "It's the economy, stupid." It was Clinton's ability to convince voters that he could do a better job than Bush in addressing their economic hopes and fears that propelled him to victory. With voters more nervous than ever about their economic future, you'd think the same mantra applies now. Not exactly, though. The phrase simply doesn't pack the same punch that it did in 1992.
The reason: whether you're talking about the United States or Europe, the economic crisis is only part of a much larger angst. What's on people's minds is leadership -- or, more accurately, the lack of leadership. Current political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic inspire less and less confidence and respect just when they need more of both to confront the daunting economic challenges posed by sluggish growth, ballooning public debt, the tottering euro and the breathtaking pace of technological changes that can be both exhilarating and frightening.
Barack Obama's approval ratings continue to be stuck below 50 percent, while the divided results in Iowa demonstrate that no Republican challenger has captured the imagination of voters, even if New Hampshire nearly anoints Mitt Romney as the party's nominee. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come closest to seizing the mantle of leadership in Europe, warning in her New Year's address that the continent was facing its "harshest test in decades." But she is the subject of dismissive comparisons to her towering predecessors like Helmut Kohl and Konrad Adenauer, with Europeans complaining that they have a historic crisis but no leaders of historic stature to meet it.
Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy -- or, as some Europeans joke, "Merkozy" -- are leading the effort to impose tough new EU budget discipline. This would apply not only to the most troubled economies, like Greece, Spain, and Italy, but also to the other EU members, except for Britain which is increasingly going its own way. But while such steps are clearly merited, there's a double danger: harsh austerity measures may not go far enough to get public debt under control, but may go too far in stifling growth. Already, there are predictions that Europe will be mired in another recession this year.
Some economists are concluding that the real culprit is the entire push for a common currency. "The euro should now be recognized as an experiment that failed," Martin Feldstein, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan, writes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. While rejecting that verdict, even some of the staunchest advocates of European integration concede that failure is a possibility. Noting that China and the U.S. have a lock on the gold and silver medals when it comes to economic performance, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski warns the EU has to prove it still deserves the bronze. Without major internal reforms, he told Newsweek's Polish edition, "We'll fall off the podium."
The crisis in the United States doesn't look quite as dramatic, which is both good and bad news. The bad news is that, short of the feeling of impending doom, America's politicians on both sides of the aisle look all too happy to consider 2012 to be a typical election year, where scoring points against each other trumps any impulse to come up with genuine solutions that require bipartisan cooperation.
Europeans traditionally admired the United States for its can-do spirit. Luigi Barzini, Italy's elegant essayist, wrote in his 1983 book The Europeans that the continent's inhabitants were always amazed by American attitudes. While Europeans expect to live with problems, he noted, Americans, by contrast, believe "that all problems not only must be solved, but also they can be solved, and that in fact the main purpose of man's life is the solution of problems."
Today Europeans bemoan the paralysis in Washington, wondering why that spirit has disappeared. They accurately point out that the U.S. faces many of the same challenges they do -- and seems even less capable of deciding what to do about them. On a per capita basis, U.S. public debt ($33,555 in 2011) is higher than that of Germany ($27,750) and France ($33,083) and is only a bit below that of Italy ($37,313) and even Greece ($34,304).
Of course, debt -- whether it's per capita or as a percentage of GDP, where the U.S. still does better than most European countries -- is only one measure of where things stand. And the Europeans are the first to admit that the U. S. still has the economic edge for all sorts of reasons -- it's more dynamic and entrepreneurial, less constrained by bureaucracy, and derives the benefits of continued demographic growth that stands in stark contrast to Europe's unremitting demographic decline. But they have no confidence that they can look to the U.S. for genuine leadership by example when it comes to solving the big economic problems.
Still, there are grounds for guarded optimism. Because Europeans now recognize they are they are standing at the edge of a precipice, they may finally focus their energies on getting things right -- finding a way to control runaway debt while promoting growth. Germany has done well within its borders on that score, but now needs to help others do so. Because Americans are more aware than ever that they now face many of the woes that they once ascribed only to Europe and other distant lands, they may demand more from their politicians in this election year -- serious proposals about serious issues in a period when rapid technological changes are redefining everyone's lives, livelihoods and capabilities. In a variety of new forums, like the Affordable World Security Conference that is scheduled for March in Washington, those discussions are already beginning.
As for the politicians, both the incumbents and those seeking to replace them, they'd do well to begin to engage in those discussions rather than merely scoring points against each other -- and to take the lead in the search for new strategies and new solutions. Or, to put it bluntly, they should ponder a new mantra: "It's leadership, stupid."
What a way to control government debt!
The remedies now needed are far too drastic for application until the status quo has more thoroughly collapsed. Only when the situation seems completely, utterly hopeless, will the leadership will be sufficiently empowered.
At the end of January, the world's leaders will again meet in Davos, Switzerland (World Economic Forum). Not this year, but soon.
It's a general lack of basic integrity from these so called "leaders" that is the broken foundation.
They ALL seem to be working for someone other than the people who "elected" them. Until you fix that, the world will never get better.
The Federal Reserve Banking System
The government of the United States of America.
It's just that simple.
50 State Secession !
Freedom !
A NEW Union, a NEW governmental system, & a NEW United States of America !
It is no surprise that countries whose cultures still adhere to the ethics of hard work, frugality and saving are doing relatively well ( See Germany and Northern Protestant states).
Whereas states with entrenched cultures of nepotism, long lunches and negligent social practices are doing rather poorly.
""No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." Matthew 6:24
Same principle applies to politics. You either work for the voters, or the ones who pay for your multimillion dollar campaigns. Those two groups are separate, and for the most part. incompatible.
It' ain't that the politicians can't lead.................It's just that they lead where their "Masters" tell them to.
Politicians don't run the show, their bosses, the moneyed few that put them in office do.
The international financial 'system', which is technically insolvent and over the long run, unsalvageable, holds the politics of nearly every developed nation captive in the fear that its demise will cause a breakdown of civilized norms, chief of which being the mutual handwashing that goes on between politicians and banksters.
As we have, worldwide, been lately enamored of the technocratic leader-type, we have over us all now a set of folks who have proved more focused on saving and defending a system than safeguarding the citizenry of their respective nations from the effects of ballooning financial predation.
Regardless, the 'system' is insolvent and unsalvageable over the long term-- and in the short term, the solution pushed by our putative leadership is: increasing austerity for victims, cheap-to-free money for the perpetrators of that system's undoing, no claw-backs and no commensurate tax increase for those who have benefited so richly at the cost, all over the world, of the middle class' equity.
Once the Tea Party won big in 2010 the USA put itslf and a steep gradient descent. All of that year and from mid 2009 the Tea Party had campaigned against the President with a quiver full of lies and hate. They claimed all manner of evil doing by the President and although they were not believable on the face of it, there was so much of it that a lazy public asumed there had to be something to it. And at the end of 2010 voted heavily againt a befuddled President.
So until the American public show maturity what's the point of politicians being responsible and coming forward with new strategies and solutions. Just curse your opponent, say the most outlandish thing about your opponent. That is why Romney focuses on cursing the President but has put forward no (or little) policy positions.
The public will reward you
While Bill continues to collect huge "speaking and consulting fees" from grateful corporations to secure his place in the 1 percent, and lecture the nation on what it should do economically, President Obama works hard to halt the continuing economic collapse and restore jobs and finanical security to the 99 percent. Thank you, Bill.