Tony Brewer

Everyone I know has been saying for at least since last January, that we in a recession. Today the government has finally agreed, making it official; we have been in a recession since last December! I don’t know what exactly is the reason it took them so long to admit it, I think that politics were involved there somewhere along the way, and now that the election is over, and there’s nothing at stake (nothing left to lose) the truth finally comes out. I sure hope that Mr. Obama can come up with a successful economic stimulus plan to turn the economy around! It’s going to be tough going, and I sure wish him luck!

It’s been a while since I was taking college courses, and to be honest one kind of blended into the next, so I really can’t remember which class lecture was talking about the subject of infrastructure. I took a lot of business classes, but this could have been a class in political science, or a class in economics, I can’t remember. But what I DO remember is that the professor was lecturing the class on how the United States was going to have a really hard time competing in the global economy. Especially against the countries that we have damaged physically through acts of war. One of the biggest reasons for that statement is the aging infrastructure in the United States, compared to the newer infrastructure of the countries that were damaged in those wars. One of the ironies in this is that after the United States taxpayers paid for the military actions in those countries AND the United States taxpayers paid for the rebuilding (and new infrastructure) in those countries that are now competing (and winning) against us!

And if I recall correctly, one of the successful maneuvers that was done after World War II that helped the suffering economy back then was for the government to invest in the building of new roads and bridges.  From what I’ve been hearing on the news, one of Barack Obama’s plans is to help jump start the economy by working on improving the infrastructure - building and/or repairing roads and bridges.  Considering how often we hear on the news that bridges have collapsed (or are in danger of collapsing) I think that is an exceptional idea!  That will put a lot of Americans on the payroll, and update our infrastructure so that we can better compete in the global economy.

I can remember learning in one of the business courses that I took in college that the stock market responds to unemployment - if unemployment is up, the stock market is usually up. If unemployment is down, the stock market is usually down. I can remember thinking that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but the professor was adamant that was a true situation. Usually when a company is struggling to make money, the stock goes down until they lay off people, causing the unemployment number to rise, which then makes the stock price go up. Does that make sense to you? Anyway, the professor said that if and when unemployment goes up and the stock market goes down, we will be in deep trouble. And strangely, that is the situation we find ourselves in now.

Stock market is down and unemployment is up and the entire country is in a state of poorly controlled panic. I heard on the television news this morning that President Bush has reversed a prior decision regarding unemployment benefits and has agreed to extend unemployment benefits longer than they have been. I didn’t hear how much longer, but it was interesting to hear the news anyway. The next several months will be interesting to watch.

I was pleasantly surprised several days ago to hear that Barack Obama wanted to offer the job of Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton. That is such a powerful job! I know that they were political rivals, but I think that Hillary Clinton deserves a powerful job, and I hope that she ultimately accepts the job and does it well: I think she would do a good job of it.

I was reading on the Time.com website that Mr. Obama was also considering giving high positions to other people who were involved in the Clinton administration, and that a lot of folks are grumbling about that, claiming that he is trying to restore the Clinton administration. Well, if I recall correctly the Clinton administration did a pretty good job with the economy and with foreign affairs, so I think that would not be such a bad thing to do, since we are currently struggling with those very issues.