The events of recent days cast our minds back to St. Patrick’s Day when, just a block away from the Fifth Avenue parade, Bear Stearns did an about turn from boom times and plunged into insolvency.
The contrast between the exteriors of the steel and concrete towers that the likes of Bear, Lehman and Merrill Lynch have long inhabited, and the house of cards that in each case seems to have been the internal reality, has been pulled into sharp relief almost exactly six months since what some have described as the “St. Patrick’s Day Massacre.”
Top financial minds and talking heads have been comparing the current Wall Street implosion with the Great Depression and the railroad crash of the 1800s. It’s unclear if the current crisis will actually turn out to be the a 21st century equivalent but it is already pretty evident that at least some of those steering the course for America’s top financial houses have been doing so with something short of wise thinking and steady hands.
And, of course, it will be the taxpayer, the ordinary voter, and the regular salaried employee, who will be paying the price for high flying hubris.
It is against this scary backdrop that the presidential campaigns have lately descended into tit-for-tat name calling, specious argument and downright silliness to the point that they are increasingly making themselves look irrelevant against the present economic situation and what some fear it will evolve into in the weeks and months ahead.
We more than ever need cogent argument and debate, practical proposals and a sense that those who would lead our country are serious about issues that won’t wait for them to play catch-up.
Higher ground campaigning would at least erve to remind the world that the United States, even though it might be taking some hard knocks, has the smarts, the will land the means to pull through a most worrying time.