I am not a conspiracy theorist. Anyone who follows me knows that I think that Oswald was the lone gunman; FDR knew nothing in advance about the Pearl Harbor attacks, etc. Nevertheless, if one considers the many sources, including the government's own General Accounting Office that suggest we are in for a terrible economic beating in the next 18 months, I am beginning to wonder if the GOP decided it would be best to put Democrats in a position to assume part of the blame for what was coming.
Think about it. Now that I recall, the news agencies put something out there that said that they would not tell who, but that a Republican informed the press about Disgraced Florida Congressman Foley's activities and pedophilia. Iraq may be a big reason the people voted the way they did, but in terms of putting Democrats over the top, the Foley issue was the stone that started the rockslide. I know this all sounds crazy and it may be totally wrong. I just think it is something to be considered. The following articles and reports led me to start thinking in this direction:
1. The Controller General of the United States speech of October 25, 2006, entitled 'America at a Crossroads' which listed multiple serious economic challenges to and problems with the economy. The speech is not copyrighted and is included at the bottom of this articled in its entirety.
2. A Report in the UK's Daily Telegraph Titled "Economic storm brewing in America "click here which also describes a ton of immediate issues with the US and UK economies, including a. In the US, "October's 9.7 per cent drop in new home prices"
b. The fact that "the rate of insider stock sales by company directors on both sides of the Atlantic is the highest since records began 20 years ago, with sales outnumbering purchases by 60:1"
c. 'Hank Paulson, who made $700 million at Goldman Sachs before taking over the US Treasury this year ... has reactivated a crisis team with a command centre in Washington to cope with the "systemic risk" in a market melt-down. His worry? 8,000 unregulated hedge funds with $1.3 trillion at hand, and derivative contracts now worth $370 trillion. "We need to be very careful here," he said.'
Item 2b struck me. Company directors in both the US and UK are betting against the market and the companies and economies of their countries and are selling shares. The people most in the know about corporate America's health do not like how things look to them.
Let's sum up that economic picture, new home prices falling off the table, hundreds of trillions of dollars of shaky funds and contracts, corporate directors unloading US and UK stocks, the massive multi faceted deficits described in the GAO report, a falling dollar, an expensive war costing billions each month, and this report by The New Statesman's Andrew Stephen "Buying into a recession" that says the US is already in a recession per "the Institute for Supply Manufacturing [which] says its domestic manufacturing index fell from 51.2 per cent to 49.5 in October, when it had been expected to rise to 51.5. Ever since the Sixties, an ISM figure under 50 per cent has signaled a recession."
I can sum it up even better than that. Six years of Republican Party dominated government has the US economy headed for a shellacking.
Getting back to the conspiracy theory, if you are a member of the GOP leadership and you start to see this happening back in September, what might you do? You could have certain aides (past or present) to certain congress people run to the press and tell them where to look for ugly information. You could hope that having a Democratic Majority in Congress when this particularly severe recession starts to get bad, results in Democrats sharing the blame or even assuming most of the blame for a bad economy. Maybe they could even salvage the congress and the Presidency in 2008. The press is already blaming the not yet seated Democratic majority for a whole host of things (see Election 2006 Aftermath – Media Attacks the not yet Seated Democratic Congress http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_061124_election_2006_afterm.htm ). The press is playing right into what might be the GOP's strategy.
Are the Republicans ruthless and calculating enough to do all of this? If so, DID they do it? I'll let my readers and time be the judge. One thing is certain, among all the other plans the incoming congress is making, contingency plans for a major depression should be one of them. This one may be bad enough to where we need to bring back some of FDR's alphabet programs like the CCC. One of the obvious contingency plans would be an immediate recall of our troops in Iraq. Certainly, with a massive economic swoon, we would not be in the position to pay billions of dollars for an effort going in the toilet anyway.
My readers, the economy is about to take a nosedive. Make whatever preparations you can.
Steven Leser specializes in Politics, Science & Health, and Entertainment topics. He has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations.
Steven Leser writes for www.opednews.com, an internet only media site that has grown to become one of the highest traffic news sites in America, reaching more traffic, according to alexa.com, than all but the thirty largest daily newspapers in the US. Mr. Leser is one of the 500+ liberal pundits who, each month, are published in what has become one of the top five Liberal/progressive media sites in the US.
Mr. Leser raises some serious points about the US economy. But first to dispose of the thrown election theory. What if the GOP had won? Can anyone who was working the hustings not believe that this election was hard fought.
Secondly, if the GOP wants to embarrass the Dems about the economy, they can just sabotage it. They don't need to wait for something unpredictable and uncontrollable like a real collapse.
Why wouldn't the GOP whether they intended a Dem takeover or not, just pull out some little disaster that they could fix after the intended rejection of the Dems?
Mr. Leser has referred to real structural weaknesses in the US economy, weaknesses that cause and exacerbate our dependence on imported oil, the underlying weakness that may well bring down the American economy.
To reduce this dependency it is vital to devise and implement a creditable urban development policy that will rationalize our distribution and transportation network and reduce our dependency on the hundreds of millions of privately operated vehicles.
Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY
by
Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments)
on Saturday, December 9, 2006 at 12:50:03 PM
1 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
