Simple Man Politics

Today I am going to write about something a little different than what I normally write about which as you all know is US politics. Today I'm going to write a little bit about politics and economies around the world in relation to the current economic crisis here at home.

As we all know the economy here in the US has taken a severe downward turn in the last couple of weeks and it has been at it's worst since the bailout bill was signed into law. This has prompted several governments to follow suit with their own versions of a bailout for their financial institutions. This just proves that America is the world leader once again because what happens here really does effect everyone around the world and if we don't fix this economic problem now that we have jumped in with both feet and committed taxpayer dollars to it we might possibly be facing a global recession.

In the UK they have instituted an 87 billion dollar bailout for banks. Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that the problem started in the US with irresponsible lending practices and has plunged the global financial markets to a point where it has ceased to function. PM Brown went on to say that the bailout in the UK could possibly exceed the 700 billion dollar bailout here in the US.

In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel made a move to guarantee bank deposits in her country and while she was originally against a EU bailout plan put forth in Luxembourg she has since reversed her position and is open to the idea. Italian PM Berlusconi said that the reason she originally didn't support the joint EU rescue plan/fund was because she didn't have the power to do so.

French President Sarkozy is reportedly in favor of the EU bailout fund which is modeled after the 700 billion dollar US bailout plan. France along with Ireland is already showing negative growth as evidenced in their markets.

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi says his government favors a UK style bailout for its financial institutions and a revival of the discussion and possible passage of an EU wide bailout fund to shore up banks and lending institutions in the EU as well as to guarantee bank deposits held by its citizenry. He points out that in the case of Italy's financial market they are not as exposed to the current credit crisis as the US and UK are.

The Spanish PM Zapatero stated that the international community understood and supported the US financial bailout plan and hoped it would restore confidence in the market. Zapatero went on to say that with strict regulations in reserve and investment the Spanish economy has zero exposure to sub prime related assets and that its financial market is very solid and is resisting the market crisis.

We have also seen adverse conditions in the market in Russia and in the Asian markets to in some cases down as much as nine percent of volume. Russia suspended trading in its market because of their financial institutions being in free fall. Iceland has even asked Russia for 5 plus billion dollars to help bailout their banks.

While it is true that all of these problems around the world with the global financial markets is a direct result of the sub prime lending problems and the credit crunch I can't help but wonder who exactly is going to be held responsible for all of it here at home. While it is true that there was an incredible amount of corruption and thievery amongst corporate CEO's and top ranking executives under them they are not entirely responsible.

There are organizations like Acorn who are responsible for forcing banks to make loans to high risk borrowers that they would not otherwise provide loans to if their ability to grow, merge, and invest was not directly threatened by such organizations with the use of CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) complaints.

There are also some politicians who are responsible for the damage done to our financial market as well for the problems we now face both here and around the world. The two most notable figures are Congressman Barney Frank who chairs the The House Financial Services Committee and Senator Chris Dodd chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. These two men are responsible for regulating and enforcing the regulations that guide our financial institutions. Instead they looked the other way and allowed the damage to our financial market after the were warned three years ago. Why, because they benefited from contributions made to them by some of those organizations and financial institutions and didn't want to see their cash cows go away. The current Democrat Presidential Nominee may even be partially responsible for his early work as both a community organizer, leadership trainer, and attorney for Acorn but that remains to be seen.

All I can say to all my friends both here and around the world is that I am profoundly sorry that in our ignorance we both allowed these figures to stay in their positions of power and turned a blind eye when we knew this day would come. Now everyone is going to have to pay a steep price for our arrogance and transparent naivete that the people we trusted to protect us have failed.

I hope you all have learned something from this post today and that you have enjoyed reading it. I also hope it has made you mad enough to go out and demand that those responsible be held accountable and pay for it. I have to go for now but I will see you all on Monday have a super weekend and enjoy the holiday, CIAO4NOW!!!!!

P.S. I have decided to make Fridays topic open to my readers. If there is something related to politics that you would like me to write about let me know. Whatever I get the most request for I will write about on Fridays and I will let you know Fridays topic on Thursday.