So Long, Farewell, Bon
Voyage? January 18, 2009
Duh bel u!
The Bush Administration
has a team of people called the Legacy team. They have been assigned
the task of polishing up the image of the past eight years of Presidential
incompetence. In my humble opinion they have a Sisyphean task.
In case you have forgotten
your Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished in lowest part of the
underworld by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch
it roll down again, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Thus,
Sisyphean can be used as an adjective meaning that an activity is unending
and/or repetitive. It could also be used to refer to tasks that are pointless
and unrewarding.
You see the reason I described
this burnishing of Bushie this way is because the magnitude of his ineptitude
may truly never be known for some time to come. However, there are
some facts that we already know.
1. He leaves office
with American image in the world at the lowest level in who knows how long.
2. Two wars continue
without visible ends.
3. When he took
office the national debt was at 3 trillion dollars, and in eight years
he managed to raise it to eleven and a half trillion.
4. The stock market
in the aftershocks of the bursting of the housing bubble lost 10.9 trillion
dollars in value during its tumble in the second half of CY 2008.
5. The lost value
of the real estate in that bubble as a result of the associated foreclosures
is estimated at another half trillion.
6. Unemployment
is being forecast to reach double digits and the job losses already equal
400 million dollars/
7. This means
that without the clock ticking or a calculator running we are facing at
a minimum an economic impact of at least $23.3 trillion.
If that number never grows
and I think it will, we are in a financial crisis much larger than any
we have ever faced. If memory serves me well and if I am able to
recall some the details from my college economics classes I can put it
in these terms. The national debt of a country should never exceed
its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) because the debt then is greater than
the capacity to repay.
Let’s do the math!
Economists have estimated our current GDP at 13 trillion dollars. This
means we have exceeded our ability to repay by over double and President-Elect
Obama faced with getting our economy restarted is trying to get a fix in
the size of the Recovery Package and who knows exactly how large it will
finally be.
How then will the Bushie
Legacy team be able to paint over all of the above? How can the image
of this bungling bum of a President be shined up even a little? They
think they can, but I am certain we will be tallying the total for a long
time to come. Instead of trying to complete their original assignment,
they should shift to damage control, except I believe their boulder will
keep rolling back down the hill.
I guess we should celebrate
the end of the Bush Presidency by substituting “Good Riddance” for all
other expressions of farewell?
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/cost-of-the-bush-era-11-point-5-trillion.aspx
