Comeuppance?

The news from America the past few weeks has been distressing to this Americaphile. Obama is leading in the polls, it would seem, because of the financial crisis that he had his hands in and he could not solve anyway. McCain seems to want to be seen as a politician leading in the latest ineffectual attempts at meddling in the U.S. economy. (His maneuver of suspending his campaign in order to deal with the crisis could be a brilliant political thing to do or it could be the sign of a campaign in desperation. But since this McCain doubter has been surprised again and again by the candidate's political savvy, I will have to wait to see what happens. After all, he was no one's pick to take the Republican nomination but he did. No one thought he would have been competitive with the young star-like 0 but he has been.)

Americaphobes, on the other hand, have been having a field day. The American live-on-credit culture got its comeuppance according to one Expat I was talking to today. That the crisis was Bush's fault was of course axiomatic to this Expat as well. (I was impressed by the text of Bush's speech ,by the way). Though the truth be told, American presidents get too much credit when the economy goes well and too much blame when it goes awry. And in this financial crisis, there is plenty of blame to spread among both major American political parties.

Tonight, one of the better-spoken students I have gave me his observations on the financial crisis. He found it ironic that America, a supposively capitalist country, was talking of using the government to solve a stock market crisis while the Chinese government, run by Communists, has been content to let the stock markets fall and sort themselves out.