They Came, They Talked -- is it over yet?

Against a backdrop of a DOW that has fallen 33.3% from its all time high, one year ago, a two trillion dollar loss to American retirement accounts (remember when it was a “billion” that was hard to wrap your mind around?), the candidates came to jaw and poke at each other.
Charlie Gibson of ABC News is on a bus touring the Midwest. Everyone he talks to is scared – students are afraid for their college loans. (Incidentally, the kids don’t believe there will be anything left in the Social Security pot by the time they get to it.) Adults are sweating businesses, jobs and retirement.
The first guy to move into the development across the street from me five years ago moved out Sunday. He’s college educated, had a job in the health field. Now he’s working part time and living with his in-laws. This is the America that OBama and McCain talked to tonight.
This is the Michigan they talked to – where what’s left of the auto industry needs huge federal loans just to retool for the next selling season. Who’s buying? The nation’s largest Chevy dealership folded up and quit this week. The silver lining, we are told, is that a lot of now superfluous Big Three dealers may be driven out of business by the downturn. (Hate to meet the dark part of that cloud.)
Business Week Magazine tells us in the current issue that the Pentagon is so strapped for cash it is buying used computer chips (from twenty year old technology) from China for its weapon systems and planes. If a chopper crashes in Iraq, it might just be a chip – sold as new – with the old model numbers scraped off. Then there’s the “back door” to our most secret devices that such chips may have embedded on them. Get hold of that article. (And we thought milk was a problem.)
The Chinese sneer and say, “Hey, you came to us because we are cheap. What did you expect?”
In the midst of all this, the candidates quickly segued to a long discussion of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Darfur, and the defense of Israel. Should we tell Pakistan that we are going to attack them – or should we attack them without telling them? (Talk softly and clobber them with the big stick.)
It is undoubtedly easier to launch bombers and discuss whether or not to allow our options to be limited by the United Nations (both candidates said a resounding “no”) than it is to figure out how to jump start a panicked economy. Or, God forbid, to discuss the future of entitlements like Social Security under the straitened circumstances foreseeable in the future. (Came up briefly, very briefly.)
A member of the audience started off the night by pointing out that you are the people who screwed up the economy in the first place and then asking, “Why should we trust with our money to fix it now?”
Both candidates answered soothingly, “I understand your frustration and your cynicism.”
Was it cynicism – or a very fair question? Is it cynicism to ask why we should trust Al Capone to enforce prohibition? Or the Ku Klux Klan to police anti-discrimination legislation? But, very gently, they assured her they understood her cynicism.
Both then quickly spelled out ambitious programs to end the mortgage crisis, reliquidify the national economy and fix the entire economic mess with only the fuzziest reference to what this might cost – and whether any of it had the faintest chance of passing Congress intact.
Everybody is ignoring that 1800 pound gorilla – getting any fix through Congress (look at the earmarks it finally took to get the bailout through, on the second vote). Tonight’s debate was no exception.
Then, off to Iraq, Darfur and who’s a better Commander in Chief. Much, much safer ground.
After the debate, a commentator for ABC summed it up pretty well. McCain came in behind – he had the most work to do. They basically tied. Since OBama came in ahead, that’s a tie in his favor.