America had become the world’s profligate uncle, (adjective) r ecklessly wasteful; unrestrained by convention or morality
Uncle Sam was buying like a drunken sailor buys drinks and he wasn’t shoving any cash across the bar, he kept reaching for over-limit credit cards. Four or five trillion ‘on the cuff’ in a country that used to make stuff and didn’t any more. Four or five trillion by an administration that claimed to be fiscally conservative. Conserve, (adjective) keep in safety and protect from harm, decay, loss, or destruction; use cautiously and frugally
Profligacy is like that. Recklessness and money woes tend to encourage one another. Bush is a reformed drunk. Did he fall off the wagon while on the country's business, or what?
The prudent man (and America used to be prudent) earns money, puts some away, invests in equipment, builds a better mousetrap and spends years working his way up through Chevrolets and Buicks until he ventures into a Cadillac.
Even then, he tends not to be smug about it.
That portion of the world that believed in us has shrunk like a cheap sweater. To a large extent, the Soviet Union kept us honest, but they’re not there any more and we’re intoxicated with money these days—other people’s money. Personal debt in America is out of control, with too many carrying four or five maxed-out credit cards.
Our profligate uncle raised profligate kids and the financial world isn’t answering the phone as often as they once did. An American dollar worth half what it was six years ago.
Everything in America worth half what it was six years ago.
Not true? Explain Chrysler selling for $7 billion? Show me how Ford and GM came to find themselves on the ropes? Tell me why our airlines are bankrupt and our bridges falling into the Mississippi, while we’re unable to rebuild a city hit by a frigging hurricane? How does it happen our schools are gone to hell, prisons full to bursting, 50 million without health insurance. We have a sinking middle class, a wall to keep Mexicans out and you think the world’s judgment of us is not true?
The last to recognize a society in shambles is the society itself—Americans in America.
It may be that the first to know are Americans outside America—they’ve seen their native currency through desperately clear eyes. And, to paraphrase the commentary about Maine as a bellwether state,
“as the currency goes, so goes the nation.”
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Media comment;
- Bloomberg-Greenspan Doesn't Expect a Rapid Decline in Dollar
- Bloomberg-Dollar Declines; Factory Data May Fuel Fed Rate-Cut Speculation
- MarketWatch-Slumping dollar puts G7 back in spotlight
- Associated Press-Oil, Gold Prices Rise As Dollar Hits Low
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