Recovery? Prelude to depression? ??

["John Gelles" <johng@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In several messages of yesterday and today
Ambassadoe Cumes asks and answers some
questions. Roughly they were these:

    Is all this talk of imminent disaster a nonsense?
    A dangerous nonsense? ... The American economy,
    it is said, is being widely hailed ... [on] the road to
    recovery after the mildest recession in the past
    half-century. OK, what's wrong with that?

    If it looks like a recovery and feels like a recovery -
    and Greenspan and ... a majority of commentators
    tell us it is a recovery - then why isn't it indeed just
    simply a recovery?
    ...
    The Enron bankruptcy is the largest in US history,
    and its repercussions will go on for years. How much
    will the Enron mess affect the stock market and the
    way corporate earnings are reported?
    ...
    What are the real profits of corporations now?
    What are their prospects for the future?
    ...
    The Greenspan hype will falter and fail. When that
    happens, we will come to earth with a bang and it
    will not be just the American economy and the
    American society at risk and in deep crisis.

    The whole world economy will be dragged in
    its wake. The 'new paradigm' will become a para-
    digm of want everywhere.

    Those of us who lived through the Great
    Depression know that it is not just an interesting
    record in the history books.

    People starve. People die. People lose their jobs,
    their farms, their homes, their hopes. People lose
    their self-respect and grab at whatever seems to
    offer some sort of rescue.

    What does that mean for Victory Over Want?

                   [End Ambassador Cumes]


        The Amabssador cannot be faulted for his
        distress with rosy forecasts and Enron-like
        crimes.

        It may be that wartime sales and profit will
        drive the economy that suffered the dot.com
        bubble and burst. But "rosy" forecasts are not
        called for.

        A sober look at America and its friends' future,
        in the light of terrorism and war against it, and
        in the light of a greater war to destroy weapons
        of mass killing effect before they murder
        millions, is what is called for.

        This, and a determination to clean up what
        Enron, Wall Street, and the lawyers and
        accountants who serve us have done that
        makes business look crooked and our
        government look worse, is what is called for.

        Neither President Bush nor Chairman
        Greenspan has as yet made clear how we
        will finance a struggle against poverty and
        want - to clean the swamps where lame
        excuses for terrorism grow - and finance the
        actual war against determined enemies who
        hate and envy this nation which, in certain
        ways, deserves the envy and has tolerated
        the hate.

        In a democracy we are entitled to such a clear
        description of what our leaders intend. Until it
        comes, it is up to Ambassador Cumes (and his
        ardent crew) to ask the questions he poses - to
        caution, by historical analogy, the great risks
        we would willing take.

        I know a wartime financial model, and a gov't
        management effort that is fair to labor, in the
        great democracies to be counted as friends -
        of a character like the models and manage-
        ment during and right after WWII - can see
        us through to recovery and advance on the
        goals of President Bush and Ambassador
        Cumes.

        In the immediate future are the President's
        hours to move nations and the world to
        that place where no one will get away with
        mass murder and no one will be left behind.