Speaking With . . .™

One of the major questions to ask when a disaster occurs is “What should we do?” If a natural disaster such as a hurricane strikes and destroys homes, businesses, places of worship, automobiles and more all along the coast, would it be better to take action significant enough to address the outcome or would it be better to do nothing? If a man-made disaster such as the great oil spill in the Gulf Coast occurs and many lose their way of earning a living, the gulf becomes terribly polluted, sea life (plant and fish) become devastated by the oil spill and the oil slowly but surely makes its way to other parts of the country, would it be better to take a minor step towards resolving the problem, take major steps towards addressing the crisis or do nothing? If a nation is plummeted into a major recession that has millions of people losing their homes and jobs, hundreds of thousands losing their healthcare coverage and states all across the country finding it increasingly difficult to provide funds for safety and education as wel as other important basic needs of their people, which would be better? To take a small step in addressing the crisis, take significant steps in turning the crisis around or do nothing?

 At the outset of President Obama’s administration, he indicated that major steps needed to be enacted in order to turn things around and make the nation stronger. Some of our nation’s elected officials stated that nothing needed to be done. Someone was wrong. Expert economists who have studied the nation’s various recessions have indicated that the reason America went through the horrors of the Great Depression is because when the recession hit, little to nothing was done to turn the situation around. A recession became a great recession and, eventually, that great recession became a major depression. That’s partly because it was decided to let banks fail rather than “bail” them out. As a result, 9000 banks failed. We remember the runs on the banks as people tried to withdraw their money before losing it. We also remember the long lines of people who waited their turn to get food. Many of them were people who had not previously known what it was to receive a “handout.” We also remember the suicides that occurred as some decided that the best way to end their pain would be to end their lives. Experts unequivocably state that had the Obama administration not taken the steps they took to turn around this current recession, our nation would have been plunged into another depression.

We need to keep up with what our leaders are telling us so we can make truly informed decisions as to who is offering the recommendations that do our country the most good, especially in times of crisis.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 4:22 PM and is filed under This Week's Guests and Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.