Thinking too global?

One problem with the government’s response to the “global economic crisis” is their focus on the word “global”.

In an episode of the TV show West Wing, one of the characters asked the president “Why is an American solder’s life worth more than a ...” and inserted the name of the fictional country they were talking about. By the end of the episode the president answered, “It’s not”.

While that may appeal to our sense of honor, it misses the point. The President of the United States was not elected to preserve and protect the lives of whatever country is under discussion, he was elected to preserve and protect the lives of Americans!

We did not elect our President, our Senators, or our Representatives to support the global economy. We did elect them to take care of the citizens of the United States of America. Events have shown that they worried so much about the impact of their decisions on “global” markets that the forgot the impact on their own citizens.

We've bled jobs to foreign countries for years because of trade agreements that made it cost effective for businesses to shift work away from the United States. Yes, we got cheaper products, but lost jobs so much faster than we created new ones that we destroyed our biggest customer base.

If your friends and neighbors don't have jobs, they can't buy your stuff!