Anxious in America
By
Thomas L. Friedman Read Spanish Version
Taken
from the Sunday, June 29, New York Times.
Just
a few months ago, the consensus view was that Barack Obama would need
to choose a hard-core national-security type as his vice presidential
running mate to compensate for his lack of foreign policy experience
and that John McCain would need a running mate who was young and
sprightly to compensate for his age. Come August, though, I predict
both men will be looking for a financial wizard as their running
mates to help them steer America out of what could become a serious
economic tailspin.
I
do not believe nation-building in Iraq is going to be the
issue come November — whether things get better there or worse. If
they get better, we’ll ignore Iraq more; if they get worse, the
next president will be under pressure to get out quicker. I think
nation-building in America is going to be the
issue.
It’s
the state of America now that is the most gripping source of anxiety
for Americans, not Al Qaeda or Iraq. Anyone who thinks they are going
to win this election playing the Iraq or the terrorism card — one
way or another — is, in my view, seriously deluded. Things have
changed.
Up
to now, the economic crisis we’ve been in has been largely a credit
crisis in the capital markets, while consumer spending has kept
reasonably steady, as have manufacturing and exports. But with banks
still reluctant to lend even to healthy businesses, fuel and food
prices soaring and home prices declining, this is starting to affect
consumers, shrinking their wallets and crimping spending.
Unemployment is already creeping up and manufacturing creeping down.
The
straws in the wind are hard to ignore: If you visit any car
dealership in America today you will see row after row of unsold
S.U.V.’s. And if you own a gas guzzler already, good luck. On
Thursday, The Palm Beach Post ran an article on your S.U.V. options:
“Continue to spend upward of $100 for a fill-up. Sell or trade in
the vehicle for a fraction of the original cost. Or hold out and park
the truck in the driveway for occasional use in hopes the market will
turn around.” Just be glad you don’t own a bus. Montgomery
County, Md., where I live, just announced that more children were
going to have to walk to school next year to save money on bus fuel.
On
top of it all, our bank crisis is not over. Two weeks ago, Goldman
Sachs analysts said that U.S. banks may need another $65 billion to
cover more write-downs of bad mortgage-related instruments and
potential new losses if consumer loans start to buckle. Since
President Bush came to office, our national savings have gone from 6
percent of gross domestic product to 1 percent, and consumer debt has
climbed from $8 trillion to $14 trillion.
My
fellow Americans: We are a country in debt and in decline — not
terminal, not irreversible, but in decline. Our political system
seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or
big opportunities. We are the ones who need a better-functioning
democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in
need of nation-building. It is our
political system that is not working.
I
continue to be appalled at the gap between what is clearly going to
be the next great global industry — renewable energy and clean power
— and the inability of Congress and the administration to put in
place the bold policies we need to ensure that America leads that
industry.
“America
and its political leaders, after two decades of failing to come
together to solve big problems, seem to have lost faith in their
ability to do so,” Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib noted
last week. “A political system that expects failure doesn’t try
very hard to produce anything else.”
We
used to try harder and do better. After Sputnik, we came together as
a nation and responded with a technology, infrastructure and
education surge, notes Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs
International. After the 1973 oil crisis, we came together and made
dramatic improvements in energy efficiency. After Social Security
became imperiled in the early 1980s, we came together and fixed it
for that moment. “But today,” added Hormats, “the political
system seems incapable of producing a critical mass to support any
kind of serious long-term reform.”
If
the old saying — that “as General Motors goes, so goes America”
— is true, then folks, we’re in a lot of trouble. General Motors’s
stock-market value now stands at just $6.47 billion, compared with
Toyota’s $162.6 billion. On top of it, G.M. shares sank to a
34-year low last week.
That’s
us. We’re at a 34-year low. And digging out of this hole is what
the next election has to be about and is going to be about — even if
it is interrupted by a terrorist attack or an outbreak of war or
peace in Iraq. We need nation-building at home, and we cannot wait
another year to get started. Vote for the candidate who you think
will do that best. Nothing else matters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/opinion/29friedman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
