Sir, with all due respect. I'm really glad that you and your team took over the helm after the last captain led us into some dangerous waters. And he was blind to the risks of us going full speed ahead in the cold north Atlantic and then cutting the budget for binoculars that would have let us avoid that iceberg in the distance.
But, even though you aren't responsible, you seem to have people in your top level team who went along with all that the old captain did. And they have told you that this we have minor damage, and the main problem is that the passengers are panicking, and once they settle down and we get the pressure up in boilers we will be just fine.
In fact you have announced that in a short time we will be back to before, that the amount of sinking will reverse itself when all the pumps are running, and not only can we continue, but we can do even more for the steerage class....the ones who loved you from the very beginning.
Sir, we just got another measurement from the engineers, and it's not good. We are sinking faster than we thought even last week when you gave that optimistic talk to everyone. And at the level that we are sinking, and given that it's not just us, that all of the ships in the ocean are sinking just as fast or faster,........
Well, I just came back from the passenger area, and although they love you, they are starting to doubt that we are going to recover. And they are starting to wonder whether we should start to face harsh reality, that there will be a long stretch when we are going to have to worry about survival.
No one wants their Captain to be uncertain, to have doubts about the course of action to take. But there is one thing that is worse, and that's when the Captain is charting his course without accepting that the the ship won't get there intact.
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Or leaving the metaphor of 1912 in words of 2009 the pump we are attempting to prime is broken. Suicides, psychiatric disorders, human suffering is burgeoning. Each day investors throughout the word refute in starkest terms your statement that recover is just around the corner.
Alan Greenspan and Lindsy Graham support nationalization of banks, while you resist, claiming that once we get out of this little recession, we will get back to normal.
The old normal is over. I don't have an answer, and you may not have an answer. But admitting this, at this time, may actually be better than sticking with a budget based on illusions of imminent recovery as you did here:
Just one day after the White House optimistically forecast a return to solid growth in 2010, the Commerce Department issued a downward revision showing the economy shrank 6.2 percent in late 2008 — far more than the 3.2 percent drop in the gross domestic product previously reported.
Being better than Bush isn't enough. I don't know what the proper course is, and it may not even come from the two parties that have served us well the last century and a half. But for a start, acknowledge just how dire the world's condition is. We are on passing over a new horizon, beyond which we don't know the shape or the form of the world that will exist.