My View:
Here are our countries problems. A credit crisis, the beginning of a food crisis, oil at $120 (with projection up to $200), gas at $3.61, truckers are going on strike, tainted imports, illegal immigration, mortgage crisis, living outside our means, debt plagued society and country, Iraq, Iran, faltering economy, and to top it off an election with three similar and equally pathetic candidates. All these problems are just piling up on each other.
The next president is going to have a lot of work to do. The next couple of years are going to be very tough. Some young people never had seen a recession before. They just don’t understand what it is like to wait in gas lines. My father has told me how brutal those lines could get, fist fights, shooting, and killing. Some leading experts are saying that our economy might go into a depression. I mean 1930s depression. Where unemployment is 30% and countries go to war to jump-start economies. We must understand that we can no longer afford to think in the short term. Short term thinking got us to where we are today. The era of cheap prices and gas is over. We will never see gas like it was back in the late 90s and early 2000. Food will never be cheap like it use to. I can see in the future, that most of our disposable income will be used for the essentials of survival. This will not last forever though. Our economy will rebound and things will be back to normal. Prices might not be as low, but people will be able to still live comfortably.
That is if Obama, Clinton, or McCain don’t mess it up. Because Americans are worried, the candidates will say anything to calm the people’s fears and help gain votes. The candidates will calm the peoples fear by having the government as the solution. How will the government be the solution? More Government control. I don’t mind some government control. Sometimes it is helpful. Some governmental control can prevent extreme problems, like if there was more control in the mortgage market. We might have avoided the problem we face today.
That is if the government does not try to over-control industries. The government loves power, and the more power it has, the more of a control freak it becomes. Government has the tendency to over-control or regulate many industries, and that’s bad for business. The government shouldn’t try to make every failing industry successful, failed businesses happen, that’s capitalism. When the government over-controls or regulates an industry or service. That industry/service tends to perform poorly in a competitive market.
Sadly, I can see that the candidates are promoting more government control and regulation, and there is no American standing up to question it. If Americans continue to worry about affording big screen TVs, gas-guzzling SUVs, cheap stuff at Wal-Mart, and only care about short-term satisfaction; then, there will be problems, and politicians that will satisfy the will of the people with more governmental control.
