Frankly Speaking --- the state of US Economy

In his recent speech, President Bush declared that there was a real financial crisis and that US must act to prevent a major crash. A massive $700 billion dollar bail out was proposed.

Is that something that surprised me? No – as a person who likes to keep himself aware of the world around himself, I read the news and on goings. A very simple lesson I tell my kids and colleagues at work is – things don’t fail or crash over night, but they slip a little on a daily basis. It is our job as leaders to keep an eye on the slip and prevent the slide. What bothers me is that no one thought of this bail out in the past one year.

Over the past one year, we heard time and again from the President and his team, that the economy has strong fundamentals. I guess those were the only voices saying that. All financial gurus, news papers, economists were screaming in the other direction. One only has to look at the housing mess around to figure out that there is a serious crisis brewing.

Have you ever compared your grocery bills over the past year? I could swear that my Costco bills have increased by at least 60% for the same items. I used to spend on an average about $70 per visit and now, my invoice reads at least $120. Gas prices used to be about $1.70 about 4 years back. Now they are close to $4. Some idiot starts speculations on these and they start moving like a machine that takes three steps in one direction and one in the other. As one of the former FBI guys said on CNN, these greedy guys at Wall Street have succeeded where the terrorists failed on 9/11 – they have brought the US economy to its knees.

Frankly speaking – I am appalled. This deserves a full fledged investigation and prosecution of the culprits.