Rant of the Day – Economic Meltdown and Britney Spears

So the US economic markets are in freefall … major financial firms are failing as a result of the mortgage crisis and failed policies of the Bush administration.  Late this Sunday, the US government stepped in to bail out AIG with a $80 BUSD loan for 80% of the company at plus 11% rates to be paid back within two years.  This will force AIG to sell off parts of their company in a somewhat orderly fashion to pay back it’s creditors (you and I).

Unemployment is at a 7 year high, the stock market fell more on one day this week since 9/11.  The decline in house values has wiped out half a Trillion Dollars from our pockets.  This is a “once in a century event” according to Alan Greenspan, and he feels “that the end or the bottom is not here yet”.  People are cutting out things like Starbucks and changing their spending habits.  The economic impact of the US markets is affecting markets and economies all over the world, since they are all interconnected, and no business will be left unchanged.

So, watching the Today show on NBC this morning, while churning through email pre-office, they do some segments on the above to start the show and then go into a 3-part (all on this one program) live interview with Britney Spears’ mom about a new book she has written about her daughters!

As a colleague said today (he’s from Canada), “American’s can be naive”.  I don’t blame the media for this, they provide us the information that people want to watch.  In other countries I’ve lived, the level of conversation is more international, and people actually know the names of elected leaders in other countries and though everyone is celebrity-conscious, no country like the US sets the standard for hyper interest with trivia and less on major national interests.

This is so evident in our election process and the debate about “lipstick on a pig” instead of debate on what each candidate would do to get us out of this mess and for the world to form a better opinion of the US and Americans in general.

And don’t even get me started on Sarah Palin – I need to save that rant for another day!  But how can someone in a recent interview defend the owership of AK-47 submachine guns with the answer of “I’m a lifelong member of the NRA!!??”.