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From the Sacramento Bee, Wednesday, Oct. 8: Presidential debate moderator Tom Brokaw set the right tone in opening Tuesday night’s event when he noted that “the world has changed a great deal, and not for the better. We still don’t know where the bottom is at this time.” At home, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke paints a dire picture. Financial systems, he said, are "under extraordinary stress." The housing market "continues to be a primary source of weakness in the real economy as well as in the financial markets." Lenders have suffered losses that "have constrained their ability to lend." Businesses are finding it more difficult to "obtain the working capital they need to meet everyday operating expenses such as payrolls and inventories."
Rightly or wrongly, many voters feel that our political leaders so far have cared more about relief for banks and Wall Street titans than for the people losing houses, jobs, health care and retirement funds. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama were willing to say that things would get worse before they'd get better, but both left no doubt of the seriousness of the moment. McCain said he would "immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes." Obama explained the health care problem as well as he ever has. In this time of great upheaval, who is the better reconciler, better able to bring Americans together? Who is more capable of matching new conditions with new thinking? Who faces these transformational times with calm, determination and an entrepreneurial spirit? |
