Of course we do. And yet, if you read Roger Cohen's piece in today's New York Times and consider what he will be facing, you might just hesitate: is this what we want to wish upon him? Cohen's piece is entitled Shoot the Horses? and he get his title from a conversation with a banker friend who says the unraveling, which beh banker describes as being of our way of life, could go on for a while, then describes telling a friend North of New York City who keeps horses to get rid of them, shooting them if necessary.
Ponder that for a moment. Cohen will force you to when he asks
Are we going to be living on horse meat before we get to the bottom of this?
or when he describes how rotten our world wide credit system really was:
a giant house of cards maintained by the ingenious connivance of banks, rating agencies and insurance companies in a monumental heist. The only buyers anyone trusts any more are governments
But that's not all . .
Cohen writes
But as the state intervenes, in what Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst, called "a giant global game of Whac-A-Mole," the moles keep popping out of new black holes in our financial system.
"We’ve tried rubber mallets, now we’re using bazookas, but we’re flying blind," Yardeni told me.
Why would anyone want the job?
Cohen offers what we might see less than a year from now: stocks trading only at 10 times earnings, no longer so highly leveraged. Large swatchs of office buildings in New York empty as the construction currently under way comes on the market. The hedge fund industry effectively wiped out- hey, there might be some good in all this!
And yet, if we are watching carefully we note the dollar is rising significantly against other currencies. a point Cohen illustrates with the relative decrease in dollars of things in London like a plate of pasta or a ride on the Tube. He explains
In a way, what’s going on with the dollar is a measure of the extent of global desperation. Here’s a currency backed by debt so massive that it will presumably have to be inflated away some day — and it’s rocketing upward.
People are getting out of investments and converting them into dollars. People want to preserve their capital, and while one might expect them to look at alternatives such as the Euro, the devastation flowing from our toxic mess has caused havoc everywhere, and
at some very basic level — and we’re down to basics — the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer is still deemed more credible than any other. That’s a confidence vote, slim but real, in the United States and its ability to come back.
Someone is going to have to address the toxic mess that is before us, a product that is not just of this administration's making. After all, the move towards deregulation started under Jimmy Carter when Alfred Kahn pushed for deregulation of the airline industry. It expanded greatly through the Reagan administration. Some of the greatest damage was done under Clinton when a Treasury Secretary named Rubin opposed those who wanted stricter regulation of markets (and remember, Rubin is advising Obama). All this is before the Bush administration made things far worse with the expansion of derivatives and the unwillingness to listen to saner minds and to put regulation upon their proliferating sales.
In a sense, much of the financial world as we have known it is already gone. We aeeing at least partial nationalization of banking around the world. Markets remain in chaos. People's financial futures have been heavily restricted. Here at home the collapse of housing prices is leading to massive shortfalls in revenue for local governments, causing severe cutbacks in services. And state government across the country - who must live within balanced budgets - are facing humongous shortfalls leading to job layoffs and cuts of important services.
Someone is going to have to take charge of all this. And we want that someone to be willing to listen, not to come in with a 'theological" approach to this or any other issue. The next President has to be a pragmatist, as was FDR in addressing our last economic crisis approaching these dimensions. So far our unemployment is only about 6%, not the more than 20% FDR in his first year. But people are scared.
Our next president will have to be able to negotiate in good faith with leaders around the world, including some with hostile intentions towards us. Someone taking a Bushian "my way or the highway" approach will only make things worse, not only for us, but around the world.
Here at home, those who will be appointed to judicial positions will also be important - in restoring our faith in our Constitutional system and our Bill of Rights, in understanding the kinds of actions the government may have to take to preserve an economy that functions well enough to prevent massive disorder or unrest.
Cohen quotes the head of a financial company as saying "Money, in the end, is confidence. It’s a check the Federal Reserve has issued." And obviously both Obama and McCain must believe they can restore that confidence, else why still seek the job in such a troubling time, when the crisis will certainly limit the ability of pursuing other goals espoused during the campaign.
But the issue is not merely their confidence. It is our confidence in them, who we trust to do the right thing, even if he has to push us into things that might seem uncomfortable.
Cohen ends with this one-sentence paragraph:
But both candidates should be clear-eyed about what’s looming. They shoot horses, don’t they?
Perhaps some may not get the cinematic reference contained in that sentence, of a desperate group of dance-marathon candidates during the Great Depression. The character played by Jane Fonda is suffering so much she wants to be put out of her misery. During the film we encounter this exchange:
Policeman: Why'd you do it, kid?
Robert: Because she asked me to.
Policeman: Obliging bastard. Is that the only reason you got, kid?
Robert: They shoot horses, don't they?
The Depression.
The things people did to get through.
People in desperate straits.
Not a pleasant image, is it?
Is not this, a possible, albeit horrific image of what confronts us, even a stronger reason to support for President a man who has the capability of inspiring us to go on, to believe that a better and more sensible future lies within reach, for us and for our progeny?
Do we really want Obama to win? Hell, yes. Consider the alternative.
Peace