The Keys To The Bank

Rev. Al Sharpton noted today on ABC’S This Week that President Obama was “Handed the keys to the bank, but there was no money in the vault”. Although I have disagreed with many things the Rev. Sharpton has said in the past, this analogy hits the administration of the financial crisis situation squarely on the head.


The Republicans are already planning to attack the President and his administration in the upcoming mid-term elections for spending so much money to shore up the economy. If you really think about it, you will realize he didn’t have a choice.

The Bush crowd, beholden to the financial interests of Wall Street, adopted the Hoover policy of “hands off, the system will right itself”. Not to mention the favors and possible under the table dealings which allowed the fox into the hen house, where they still resist moving from today.

Like almost all Americans, I don’t like the government spending trillions of dollars that could be going to other, more useful things. However, the financial system was in such bad shape, the entire economy could have come crashing down in a manner not seen since the great depression. I don’t know if it was the right decision, but it was better than making no decision at all. What would you, yes you … the person reading this … have done if you had had to make the decision?

It is curious that the word and the amount of a trillion dollars has become a word and reference we are now comfortable with in normal discussion of the national economy. A year and a half ago, that number would have been almost unthinkable and would strike fear in the hearts of most sane Americans as a number too big to contemplate. To paraphrase the late Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-Ill) “A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

In a very short time we have gotten used to the concept of trillions of dollars as an everyday measure of government spending. This is a sign of the times, I guess. However, we wouldn’t be in this position if the Republicans and the Bush administration hadn’t let the Wall Street rapists run wild. This is a fact that should be remembered when considering who to elect to lead in the mid-term elections and the General election of 2012.

I don’t want to go back to the way it was … banks having no firm foundation, people being mislead into bad personal financial situations they don’t understand, companies without credit to operate and expand and all the rest. Yes, the recovery from all this bad management is painful and will take time. It isn’t pleasant and will be agonizing in some cases. But the end result will be real and substantial and will stand on solid ground.

Americans have developed the attention span of a gnat. This is something politicians have adapted to. President Obama is trying to explain things that are very complex in short sound bites. I don’t know how much people will understand with this method of communication, but let’s hope some of them get it. All I can say is that until the Republicans can offer more reasonable stances on the issues, the public will not feel there is any middle ground and may decide to opt out of the political process for the next election cycle. Let’s hope that some thinking heads on both sides prevail and we have a truly honest discussion about where we want this country to go.


Naw, who am I kidding?