COLUMN: The problem? No leadership
Are we living in a Third World country? It certainly feels like a it as we scurry around like rats looking for gas and watch extraordinary upheavals in the nation’s political and financial spheres.
Consider:
• We can hardly get gas in Georgia and when we do, it’s 60 cents more per gallon than other areas. Meanwhile, Gov. Sonny Perdue flies off to Spain on a junket trip like some Third World dictator who doesn’t give a damn about his subjects. The post-Katrina gas shortage three years ago should have been a warning to state officials to plan for the next Gulf hurricane and resulting gas disruption problems. Apparently, it wasn’t. In today’s world, a country that can’t move vital resources like fuel around when a hurricane hits is little more than a second-rate power.
• On Monday, Congress failed to find an agreement to shore up the teetering U.S. financial markets. Major banks are failing, the international credit markets are faltering and the stock market looks like a rollercoaster. Republicans blame Democrats; Democrats blame Republicans. Then they both leave town on a three-day recess so they can campaign back home. And they want us to trust them?
• President Bush is AWOL. When he does poke his head out of his shell, nobody pays attention or believes him. He cried “wolf” on Iraq and WMDs; failed to lead in the Katrina debacle; and with “terrorism” as a cover, planted the seeds of fear in the nation’s psyche to the extent that we have to go barefoot to fly on airplanes. Bush has so tainted his reputation that he has no impact on the important issues we now face. The presidency is in shambles.
• Wall Street has become a pejorative for greed. While there is a lot of blame to go around for the sub-prime mess and the current market turmoil, most people understand that the barons of Wall Street made millions off of simply moving paper around. They didn’t create anything other than flawed financial products that have now imploded. Now these “Masters of the Universe” are begging for a lifeline from the very political system they disdain. It’s insulting.
• We don’t make anything in this nation any more. Over the last two decades, we have off-shored many of the very core industries that we need as the basis for economic stability. We are a nation of services that we may not now need. When a nation gives up its core manufacturing sectors — automobiles, equipment, textiles and others — it gives up its ability to control its own destiny. A nation’s real economic wealth is created by taking raw materials and making something of value for consumers. The U.S. economy has ceded far too much of its manufacturing to other countries.
The common thread in all of this is a huge lack of leadership in both the public and private sectors. No national institution today commands the respect necessary to lead the American people out of the current crisis.
The result is no confidence in either the political or financial markets. If trust and confidence are the underpinnings of our financial and political systems, then no wonder the house of cards is collapsing.
Over the last 25 years, I’ve traveled a good bit around the world, often to Third World areas and developing nations. I’ve seen what happens when greed and narrow political interests undermine public confidence in political and economic institutions. The results are very, very ugly.
Without the emergence of some real leadership in this nation, we’re headed in the same direction.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson Herald. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
• We can hardly get gas in Georgia and when we do, it’s 60 cents more per gallon than other areas. Meanwhile, Gov. Sonny Perdue flies off to Spain on a junket trip like some Third World dictator who doesn’t give a damn about his subjects. The post-Katrina gas shortage three years ago should have been a warning to state officials to plan for the next Gulf hurricane and resulting gas disruption problems. Apparently, it wasn’t. In today’s world, a country that can’t move vital resources like fuel around when a hurricane hits is little more than a second-rate power.
• On Monday, Congress failed to find an agreement to shore up the teetering U.S. financial markets. Major banks are failing, the international credit markets are faltering and the stock market looks like a rollercoaster. Republicans blame Democrats; Democrats blame Republicans. Then they both leave town on a three-day recess so they can campaign back home. And they want us to trust them?
• President Bush is AWOL. When he does poke his head out of his shell, nobody pays attention or believes him. He cried “wolf” on Iraq and WMDs; failed to lead in the Katrina debacle; and with “terrorism” as a cover, planted the seeds of fear in the nation’s psyche to the extent that we have to go barefoot to fly on airplanes. Bush has so tainted his reputation that he has no impact on the important issues we now face. The presidency is in shambles.
• Wall Street has become a pejorative for greed. While there is a lot of blame to go around for the sub-prime mess and the current market turmoil, most people understand that the barons of Wall Street made millions off of simply moving paper around. They didn’t create anything other than flawed financial products that have now imploded. Now these “Masters of the Universe” are begging for a lifeline from the very political system they disdain. It’s insulting.
• We don’t make anything in this nation any more. Over the last two decades, we have off-shored many of the very core industries that we need as the basis for economic stability. We are a nation of services that we may not now need. When a nation gives up its core manufacturing sectors — automobiles, equipment, textiles and others — it gives up its ability to control its own destiny. A nation’s real economic wealth is created by taking raw materials and making something of value for consumers. The U.S. economy has ceded far too much of its manufacturing to other countries.
The common thread in all of this is a huge lack of leadership in both the public and private sectors. No national institution today commands the respect necessary to lead the American people out of the current crisis.
The result is no confidence in either the political or financial markets. If trust and confidence are the underpinnings of our financial and political systems, then no wonder the house of cards is collapsing.
Over the last 25 years, I’ve traveled a good bit around the world, often to Third World areas and developing nations. I’ve seen what happens when greed and narrow political interests undermine public confidence in political and economic institutions. The results are very, very ugly.
Without the emergence of some real leadership in this nation, we’re headed in the same direction.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson Herald. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
Our Congress created the housing crises by requiring lending institutions to approved mortages to people who could not afford to repay the loan. Banks having to eat these bad mortages. I hope that we wake up and put our Country First in November by voting for McCain/Palin. There is evidence that Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and others did not stop this economic mess. I hope the Justice Department in the next adminstration will take a hard look at what happened and who is responsible and send these folks packing out of govenment/Stock market and straight to prison. That would let Americans believe that JUSTICE will prevail.
1. Maybe Gov. Perdue was drumming up some new industry for Georgia on his trip to Spain.
2. The reason we have gas shortages in Georgia is that Gov. Perdue enacted the price gouging law preventing the market from working properly. There is an infinite amount of gasoline to those willing to pay the price. When the govt puts a price ceiling on gas prices, it causes shortages. For example, a refinery located a 1,000 miles away would be glad to ship gasoline to Georgia but they can't do it for the normal price. But there is always an enterprising truck driver willing to make a few extra bucks. I'd rather pay $8 for gasoline than not to be able to buy it for $4.00. What good are low prices if you can't buy the product?
3. The Atlanta Metro area has to have special gas to satisfy the lefties. Don't blame the Republicans for this nonsense.
4. Individual mortgage brokers and banks wrote many untenable mortgages and then sold them for a profit to larger banks. How could these secondary entities know they were only buying a piece of paper? Maybe they should have known but how many of us know that our own local people wrote hundreds, if not thousands of these bogus mortgages? Don't blame Wall street. Main Street caused this problem at the grassroots level. And not all places in the country are affected the way we Georgians are because we wrote more bad mortgages than most areas. It's easy to blame Wall street but have you checked your 401k's lately. You and I ARE Wall street and main street.
5. Blaming Bush for the lack of WMD's is really ridiculous and is simply repeating Democrat talking points. I don't know any Americans that didn't believe S. Hussein didn't have WMD's. We all knew he had completely ignored UN security council rulings and until Bush came into office didn't even let the inspectors in for years. And it's our fault we couldn't be sure about WMD's? Geesh. S. Hussein used WMD's on his own people and against the Iranians. He was a threat to the oil supply to the whole free world. Stop crying that poor S. Hussein isn't there any longer. In the long run we have hope for the region because of our actions there. God help us if it doesn't work. It'll be generations before anyone else will stick his neck out to clean up that wretched region of the world. And Katrina can be blamed on Bush because he didn't dispatch the parked school buses to help evacuate his city? But he's not the mayor of New Orleans. I don't know about you but when a cat 5 Hurricane is brewing in the gulf I wouldn't be sitting below sea level in N.O. We have 300 million people in this country and some of them don't have the sense to come out of the rain. The breeching of the levis was a once in 100 years phenomena. It's the biggest mess in my lifetime. The government can't be there for everyone all the time. There were actually people that chose to remain on Galveston Island during Ike, only 3 years after Katrina. What are people thinking? And this is George Bush's fault? No one saw Katrina coming. Bush has prevented any new terrorist attacks in 7 years. The terrorists only have to be right once. The president has to be right every time. Bush has accomplished the main mission of the commander in chief by keeping us safe. I don't agree with many things he has done but he is obviously a scape-goat for everything that ails us in this country and it's ridiculous. Sometimes if lies are loud enough and long enough we all tend to believe them. It's like Global warming. How many people know that Mars is also warming? No one talks about that. One things for sure though, it's George Bush's fault.
6. If Wall street isn't bailed out we will enter into a depression. History proves this. Herbert Hoover did nothing with the '29 crash. He increased tariffs and taxes, tried to balance the federal budget and let people starve.
We don't build anything in this country because foreign competition is getting the best of us. People buy Hondas (made in America) because they're better cars than Chevrolet or Ford. American cars don't last as long and they have more problems. Is that Japan's fault? Again, we need to look in the mirror. We can not have central economic planning as we saw with the Soviet Union what happens when you run a country like that. The market, with proper regulation, should determine if our economy is manufacturing or service or technology oriented. Why should we make steel when it costs us 100x more to make than buying it from China? Who could afford American steel now? Certainly not Americans. This would also apply to our favorite Southern industry, textiles. Is this what we should be manufacturing? On the other hand, Microsoft, (the company that everyone hates) has put their operating system on almost every desktop computer in the world. That is the way America surpasses them all. Technology. (MADE IN AMERICA) Education is free or readily available to all U.S. citizens. Get an education and you don't have to worry about finding a manufacturing job. Manufacturing in this country will return when our wages become roughly equal with the rest of the world. Hopefully this won't ever happen.
Leadership and change start at the grassroots. Look at Sarah Palin's record. She's nothing like what's been clogging up the sewer pipes in Washington. Obama offers us a retreat to the failed liberal policies of the past that we discarded after Jimmy Carter demonstrated the futility of this doctrine.
I still believe in America but we're going to suffer before we re-discover just who we are and what we are capable of.
THE U.S.A. IS IN IRAQ TO ENSURE THAT THIS COUNTRY HAS A MILITARY PRESENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST THAT CAN FORCE ACCESS TO MIDDLE EASTERN OIL IF IT COMES TO A REQUIREMENT OF FORCE.
Pure and simple. Any other explanation is a lie.
Of course, the government can't SAY that, or every other country in the world would be up in arms to force the US Military OUT of Iraq, and in a big hurry, too!
THINK people. Come on, I KNOW at least a FEW of you MUST have SOME brain cells left.
I think the problem in this country is the politics, politicians and those like you who like to keep the people enraged and divided. The truth is most Democrats and Republicans are moderates and agree on more issues than not, its the extremists on both sides that keep the 'pot stirred' so to speak and generally someone who does that does so to push their own agenda. Those who are promoting their own agenda do not have the good of the Nation in their mind and thus they need to divide to further their own selfish desires. The problems we face today whether its the war, gas, oil, whatever are a direct result of those pushing their own selfish agendas rather than putting the good for the WHOLE nation at the forefront. I am hopeful that someday people will be smart enough to turn a deaf ear to those like yourself who only seek to divide us. Vicious attacks, lies, deceit and innuendoes seem to be the only 'honesty' coming from the Democratic camp and those are from the extremists but the moderates do nothing about it, why isn't any one in your camp standing up for whats right? And really how can anyone Democrat or Republican stand by while these cruel and vicious attacks on Mrs. Palin and her family are ignored? How on earth can the Democrats stand by and allow their party to be hijacked by lunatics using fringe (Saul Alinsky) type tactics to endanger children? And too how do Republicans justify their responses to what is going on in our Nation? Why are they so hesitant to stand up to these tactics too? I find it incredible that when there is even a hint of inpropriety concerning a Republican they cut and run, quitting and hiding rather than face the music. Although on the other hand the Democrats commit crimes and stand before the Nation and dare them to fire them.
Our whole Nation is in dire straits and those to blame are those who divide us, we need someone that still believes and loves this country, someone who cares enough to stand up for whats right and not back down. Someone who is willing to accept others differences because they know that in reality that is exactly what makes this country strong. I am sick to death of people like you complaining about how bad everyone else is when you Mr. Buffington are a prime example of who really is to blame.
As for this statement you made. "And about your last sentence, how am I to blame for the gas shortage and the nation's financial problems?" Here was my last sentence: "I am sick to death of people like you complaining about how bad everyone else is when you Mr. Buffington are a prime example of who really is to blame." Where do you see anything stating you alone are to blame for the gas shortage and nation's financial problems? As stated many times in my response to your article I pointed out as a whole it is the divisive politics and those like yourself who are biased and using rhetoric and inflammatory comments to keep the division between moderate Democrats and Republicans going which in turn creates the problems this nation now faces. What I don't get is that you promote an us vs them mindset. This Nation is big enough for us all and its whole existance is based on each of us being able to believe what we want. The problem has arisen with those who seek to destroy anyone who doesn't share their belief. All Americans liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican have a right to their views but they should also recognize that others do to and respect that. Never in my life have I seen such rudeness and vicious barbs traded concerning politcs, the disrespect our citizens show towards one another is fueled by the poisonous words of those such as yourself and it is time that reporters, columnist get back to the truth and facts rather than twisting them to suit themselves or their agenda. It's like with your response to me, you deflected and ignored the point of my response and instead chose to address my supposedly blaming you solely for the gas and financial crisis! I don't think you and those like you will ever 'get it' not because you can't but because you won't. You enjoy creating division and keeping the moderates inflamed and angry, and the truth, fact or the good of the entire Nation isn't important vs your agenda and personal beliefs.
All of the constant insults and lies are just down right embarrassing.
People, stop being lead around like SHEEP and think for yourselves! See the TRUTH and take a STAND.
DO something, make a difference! Stop waiting for everyone else to put a stop to this nonsense and do it YOURSELF.
If you're honest and smart and care about our country, RUN FOR OFFICE! Stand up to the crooks and self-interested politicians!
And for God and Country's sake, don't wait for McCain or Obama to "save" us.
THEY WON'T!!!
Only YOU can make a difference. But only if YOU will step up and do what's needed.
Do you really care?