Consistently Inconsistent…

Recently I have been keeping track of the events in the USA’s economy and the attempts that are being planned and/or made to “bailout” their economy. Apart from the fact that these events in and of themselves are fascinating and do in fact have global repercussions, it is the USA government’s response that I find the most fascinating.

Over the years the USA has been at the forefront of the development of and advocating for a global (free-market and/or capitalist) economy as well as numerous efforts to bring democracy to various corners of the globe. What I find interesting though is the limited and very selective applications of these ideologies at times – with the one consistency some would argue is that the USA is better off. What am I talking about? Although the USA brought democracy (to some degree) to different countries they, with the assistance of other countries, have prevented a true global democracy – I’m once again referring to the existence of the veto power of the UN Security Council. There are other, some would say debatable, examples where it has been ensured that introduced democracies are USA friendly, but that’s something I’m not going to go into right now.

Then there is the $700 billion proposed bailout of the USA economy. It is being sold as something that is good for the world, but it has to be argued that it also attempts to ensure the USA maintains its position as a global economic leader – a position that is coming under threat more and more from the EU, Chinese and Indian economies. Then there is the irony of taking an arguably socialist action in an attempt to shore-up a falling economy. Some say that the number don’t lie and while I don’t always agree with this the fact that this bailout could free the entire African continent from its foreign debt 3.5 times over is definitely eye-opening and at the very least this has to cause us to question the USA’s claims of benevolence. I’ll close of with two comments I came across recently regarding this plan-of-action. Allan Chernoff (CNN, Senior Correspondent) said that this plan is “throwing capitalism on its head” and a US Senator Jim Bunning said that this is “socialism and it is un-American”.