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RNC / DNC: Crisis? What Crisis?

by: Paul Kedrosky September 06, 2008    
Paul Kedrosky

Paul Kedrosky

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Now they're planning the crime of the century
Well what will it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
It's well worth a fee

          -- "Crime of the Century", Supertramp (1974)

What continues to amaze me is the not-so-benign neglect being accorded by politicians to the current financial crisis in the U.S. Granted, it's usually better being ignored by such people; and granted, the current debacle is more complicated than saying "Ken Lay is a bad man". But if you had watched the just-completed Democratic and Republican National Conventions, you wouldn't have known the U.S. is stumbling through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Nor would you have known, of course, that we're queuing up for a bill that could exceed total Iraq War expenditures.

To prove the point to my own satisfaction, I combined the Palin/McCain acceptance speeches in one block of text, and the Obama/Biden speeches in another. I then set up some keywords to compare across the text blocks. The following summary table shows keywords in the left column, and then respective keywords counts for each party' slate in the appropriate DNC or RNC column. This isn't the usual exercise in cute tag clouds, but an attempt to understand whether important language concerning the current financial crisis penetrated the political radar over the last few weeks.

And it hasn't -- unless, of course, the repeated utterance of the word "God" came in a context more like "Oh God, we're screwed!" than I think it did.

Picture 2

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This article has 24 comments:

  •  
    Sep 06 08:46 AM
    Interesting chart. But how much effect does any president have on the economy? They both talked about "jobs" and "prosperity"... and RNC mentioned the global economy at least once. Try your word check with those words, because keywords 2 thru 8 are not in the working vocabulary's of the "masses" I'm guessing.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 09:47 AM
    Even larger is the keyword "environment"... I am wondering if it was ever mentioned in the DNC and RNC speeches? We must understand that climate change is the largest problem we have to tackle. We live in an addictive, compulsive society where we deny, deny, deny!
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 10:01 AM
    I'm thinking we should be sure we've seen a complete global enviromental cycle, before we declare "global warming" has occured.

    Has anyone obtained a good correlation? Or, just a Nobel Prize?
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 10:36 AM
    Check how much money was donated to the respective parties so far, you call that a financial crises? Furthermore, I agree with Phil Gramm, the crisis is mostly fabricated by media types amd the hordes are panicking and making it worse. ilive in NYC metropolitan area. The roads are clogged with traffic, stores have a ton of people inside either browsing or shopping. when I go to my local restaurant for a meal it is jammed with people. I was recently in Wash. DC area for 6 weeks. The story is the same. I attended a family affair in LA area. The affair was held in California Yacht Club there was another affair going on at the same time and the restaurant for members only was jam packed with diners. I understand that all the stories that I just enumerated are anecdotal in nature, nevertheless something does not add up. If things are as bad as they are described in the media how come so many people are going about their business as though every thing is okay
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 11:02 AM
    You just could'nt resist being cynical, could you ohm? How long do you suggest we wait, one or two millenia?
    There are many reasons for improving the environment other than the fear of total catastrophe: If you live on the East Coast for example, and the air you breathe is polluted by power stations in the Mid-West it is easy to see why this and other, worse situations around the globe should be corrected.
    Nobel prizes are not distributed willy-nilly. Perhaps you are smarter than the scientists and other persons of great intelligence who see value in the attention drawn to the possibility of industrial global deteriioration and warming.
    Unfortunately, your comments may be construed as politically motivated and unhelpful.
    Personally, I am in favor of the responsible use of clean Nuclear Power, or should I say Nukuler?
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 11:21 AM
    rusbear - you were not around (I am guessing here) the same atmosphere surrounded the 1929 panic and bank runs, one day the world is tea parties, the next, your cooking soup in a partridge lard can. No,this is not a disney movie and visits to many retailers will tell the tale, this a Big Badass Bear. Many retiree's and wannbe retired are reeling from botched management of 401k' and retirement grade finances.
    Also, just pay the grocery bills, lately this making the news too. This is bad and has no way to get better.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 11:34 AM
    You're right of course.

    But the explanation is that Big Business tells the Federal Government what to do, not the reverse. When one party or the other is finally elected in November, then the left or right wing of the business class will tell the politicians what has to be done.

    They don't want to talk about it now because their solutions are embarrassingly similar.

    For example, as everyone knows, big pharma controls the FDA and NCI, not the other way around. Are McCain and Obama really going to argue about more or less freedom for the monopoly pharmaceutical industry and more or less control of government agencies like the FDA?

    Ditto for the real estate and finance industry and their associated "regulatory" agencies.

    The elected party will wait for instructions once elected. Once "in power," the think tanks and university professors will provide solutions which the politicians will pretend are their own.

    Let's see, the banks and financial institutions will be bailed out if they are large enough and the smaller ones will be red meat for the large ones, people who can't afford to pay their mortgage payments will be kicked out of their houses and be given more or less freedom to sleep anywhere they want as long as it isn't in a house or apartment building ...

    In response to the Russian bear, the wealthy never suffer in depressions. During the Great Depression they had a grand time. In fact, during recessions and depressions, they feel even better because they have more people fighting to work for them for lower wages. Why would you expect diners in the best restaurants of Manhattan or the members of the Los Angeles Yacht Club to be any more or less happy during a recession?

    The bottom 95% of Americans need much more freedom and the top 1/2 % much less. That used to be the definition of democracy.

    What political party can deliver that kind of economic freedom?
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 11:46 AM
    I was once in a mediation over a business dispute. The mediator told us that the best result was a resolution in which no one felt like they got what they wanted. That was his measure of fairness - that was his metric becuase there is always some element of truth to both sides.

    We must raise taxes and we must cut expenditures. It is quite simple. The politicans are unwilling to tell the truth in either party and the American people don't know enough about finance to demand answers becasue they don't know what questions to ask.

    It was PT Barnham who said: Never overestimate the intelligence of the American people.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 12:00 PM
    I think it is a very fruitful correlation, which could lead on to other considerations perhaps. Three might come to mind. First, do either of the tickets have knowledge they are not talking about? Second, if they do, and were to use that knowledge would the effect be beneficial or harmful? Third, if one of them broke with the story that everything is under control etc of Paulsen and Bernanke what would the reaction be from the other and the media "Irresponsible, panic mongering, doom saying nabobs of negativism"?
    In 1932 FDR did not associate with Hoover's policies, despite immense pressure to do so, but only talked in general about his, and ran his "forgotten man" campaign. Not so bad seeming now as then, but the next shoes to drop will for sure be economic as well as financial. The present silence for sure will not last past next March!
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 12:13 PM
    This article needs a wider audience (no offense to Alpha, of course!).
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 12:14 PM
    All our problems are the result of the greed ,off course the greed is the main motivator in capitalism. Does any one has a solution. The media is not helping. I heard in the media that the reasons for the market going down is the oil is over $150 and weak dollar. 2 weeks later I heard that the reason for the market decline is the oil going below $106 and strong Dollar. Makes sense heh
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 12:34 PM
    historicaly the republicans have stood for big business and the democrats have stood for the middle class and the poor. anybody who thinks it was god's will to go into iraq is not thinking clearly. do you really want a party that wants to repeal roe vs. wade, wants to build nuclear power plants etc. this sounds to me like going back 20 years instead of going forward. i live in alaska for 3 years now ,any of you can say the same? so look out, don't let the wool be pulled over your eyes, vote with your brain, do some research on the issues, and just maybe we will change this country and go in the right direction.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 12:39 PM
    Another 4 years of this type of administration and were in deeper trouble probably going from recession to depression. Economic Policy should have tightened up years ago but the Republicans thought that they could get thru the next election by pumping and pumping the Housing Bubble, but their timing was off. Now they are going to pay a price for this gamble both in higher taxes for the wealthy and oil interests.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 01:12 PM
    Has anyone researched the promises made vs. promises kept for each political party over the past, say, 40 years? I'm speaking of both Presidential and Congressional candidates and their leadership. It is obvious that they cannot put forward a sensible, workable program that has any utility in the long run. Why? Because they are crisis reactors rather than studious, common sense operators. Their only salvation is to stay in office, blame the other party and take voters eye off the problems they have created in the past 80 years.

    A case in point is the recent "stimulus" package. Why was the $150 or so billon the right number? Why not $1.5 trillion? That seems to be the number for the debt crisis, doesn't it. If they would just print and distribute the $1.5 Trillion where it was needed, the debt/credit problem would be solved and Americans would be able to own their homes debt-free. That would then free up a lot of cash flow to buy all the new "stuff" that everybody needs and keep factories around the world humming.

    And talk about a vote getter! Just have Congress authorize the Fed Reserve to pay off all debt owed to credit card companies, auto financing, businesses, etc. While they are at it, they can nationalize Fred and Fan and retire all that debt. They could also start paying 20% interest on CD's so retired folks can have a decent standard of living, while at the same time passing a law that says it is illegal for stocks to go down. That would solve the 401-k problems and encourage folks to put money into the stock market.

    See how easy it would be?
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 01:20 PM
    Mr. Kedrosky:

    Context is everthing!
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 02:24 PM
    Great chart. It's simplified, but useful. Unfortunately, I think that we have got to find a way to get more involved in the dialog that our leaders are presenting. All of the bio-drama and opponent bashing won't solve a thing. It's not just what you did yesterday, but what you plan to do tomorrow. The republicans don't seem to have any answers other than drilling for more oil, now. I truly believe in the power of ideas and having a good promoter (President) lend confidence to a nation concerned. We saw that with Ike, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton. Now we need Obama to do the same. Oh, and for the record, I'm not a Democrat.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 03:52 PM
    Here is the right answer to our energy problems.....DRILL, DRILL, DRILL AND DRILL YOU HIT CHINA AND INDIA OIL STORAGE TANKS AND THEN JUST SUCK IT UP. Maybe they wont notice. lookusup.com
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 05:00 PM
    I forgot to add that I like your title, "RNC / DNC Crisis? What Crisis?"

    Don't forget that we live in a country where three times as many people can name the three stooges as can name three Supreme Court justices.

    Er, what crisis did you have in mind, anyway?

    I would wager that no more than one out of a hundred Americans know what the letters RNC and DNC stand for, not to speak of what the crisis IS.

    Probably even fewer know what the letters DNA stand for. But then we know that Evolution is only a theory so what difference does it make?
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 06:31 PM
    The RNC doesn't really want to address the current economic mess because it happened with a Republican President. The DNC doesn't really want to address the current economic mess because it occured with a Democratic Congress. Better to just harp on "change" even tho they both know that is impossible with our money driven electoral system (which they all really love).
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 06:34 PM
    rusbear: Wow, the wealthy are still having parties at their California Yacht Club and still eating out at fancy restaurants. So much for any financial crisis I guess.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 06:38 PM
    Irondoor: Great ideas, we could just call it the Zimbabwe solution.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 06 09:27 PM
    Thank you for the article.

    If we don't stop talking about and
    If we don't stop trying to enlighten and
    If we don't stop lifting the wool over their eyes and
    If we don't stop feeling livid, angered, disgraced

    Then they will get away with it.

    This is not like coming home from an overly long visit to the In-laws only to find the car wrecked and house trashed by wasted teenagers. It's the moment you found out that someone emptied your bank accounts too.

    We KNOW money went from the GSE's to 527 Groups which "TA DAAA" over course went into congressional campaigns all over the nation. I wouldn't be shocked if 100 out of 100 senators have blood on their hands. And the House. Oh My God. Carnage.

    So why not start by having the 527 Groups pay the money back to us? Simple start. EH. And then the Jamie Gorelick's and the Frank Raines' and the Susan Molinari's of this disgraceful chapter in American history can spend a little time to think about new careers in a federal concrete cell complete with Chinese steel bars.

    And THEN we will pay for the damage the "wasted teenagers" did to the precious house.

    Reply
  •  
    Sep 07 01:31 AM
    Excellent posts ! ! !

    ref: Dirtt . . . .
    If we don't stop talking about and
    If we don't stop trying to enlighten and
    If we don't stop lifting the wool over their eyes and
    If we don't stop feeling livid, angered, disgraced

    Then they will get away with it. . . . .

    In the U.S.A., "The two party system has worked VERY well ! . . . . .
    "For the two parties !"

    ref: Rhodesia er/ Zimbabwe, formerly fed it's neighbors . . . . of course, Zimbabwe has only one party . . . and the citizens are NOT invited !

    Roy Stewart,
    Phoenix AZ
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 07 03:26 AM
    ahhhaaa?, vote for Ralph Nader?
    Reply
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