Thomas Friedman is nervous... if I read correctly between the lines... very nervous. He quotes Mohamed El-Erian, the long time head of Pimco, a big bond investment firm who in a report states:
"The world is on a journey to an unstable destination, through unfamiliar territory, on an uneven road and, critically, having already used its spare tire."
Friedman further quotes Walter Shapiro at Politics Daily:
"The hopeful message buried in all these election returns is that voters are tired of being toyed with. The problems afflicting America are too grave to tolerate the cynical, cling-to-power-at-all-costs cynicism of Arlen Specter and other Capitol Hill Machiavellis. The choices voters make in their desperate quest for authenticity are not always wise or well grounded in reality. But politicians and pundits — obsessively calculating partisan advantage like Scrooge counted shillings — will ignore at their own peril the stirrings of idealism among voters in both parties."
Americans are fed up with most of today's national incumbent politicians. They have not spent our taxes wisely and have created massive debts. We tend to blame presidents for this , but the greater problem is the Congress who are responsible for budgets and spending.
This explains the rise of the Tea Party movement and the results of elections and primaries in the past few months. Americans clearly show their unhappiness with incumbents because they have not led us well and have demonstrated far too much self-serving and partisan behavior.
Friedman says:
"I think many Americans understand this at some intuitive level. In this economic climate, people know they need to be smarter, more frugal and make tougher choices in their private lives. They know they can’t fake it or fool themselves anymore, so they have much less tolerance for politicians who want to do that in our public life."
I share his uncertainty and have great concerns about the direction our present national leaders are taking us. We deserve better.
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