Who should push the reset button?

American Exceptionalism has run its course over the last century. It is time to hit the ‘reset’ button! The world has changed during the last three decades. There are other cultures and civilizations that have emerged on the global stage. These emerging powers want a bigger role in reorganizing the world. This does not mean the diminution of the American power or prestige, it simply means that other countries expect similar reciprocation and respect from the United States of America.

Seventy years back another US President had to push the ‘reset’ button but those were different times and that was no ordinary President. We are talking about the legendary Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. The situation is as dire as it was during the Great Depression, only the then impending World War II is now replaced by the ‘War on Terror’. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill knew how to win the World War II, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have no clue how to win the ‘War on Terror’! Do we really need to wait for four long years?

What exactly is this ‘reset’ button? It means that the world has to go back to the default position and renegotiate its way into a new world order. Just like in 1945 the League of Nations had to be replaced by the United Nations, now the UN itself has to be replaced by something else. America and China would fight hard to retain the defunct United Nations Security Council. Sooner or later the US dollar has to be replaced as a reserve currency by something else. America would fight tooth and nail to resist that! The entire global financial infrastructure has to be replaced by another Bretton Woods type system. US would fight that too. Who will push the ‘reset’ button?

Democracy needs a strong Chief Executive

Legislators and Law Makers design a democracy by writing a constitution and then refining it from time to time. By inclination they are reluctant to give any real power to the executive. It is up to the head of the executive (President or the Prime Minister) branch to seize the necessary powers and then use them when necessary. The case in point is the United States of America and its executive branch. No such powers were given to the President of the United States under their constitution. It was the personal leadership of George Washington and then Andrew Jackson that resulted in a strong federal government. There were five American Presidents between Washington and Jackson who exercised limited executive powers. These ware John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. All five contributed a lot to their country but never used the executive powers like Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt or George W Bush.

When 9/11 happened in 2001, George W Bush and his administration scared the shit out of congress! The Republicans had the majority in both houses of congress but even the Democrats were willing to jump from the cliff. He not only launched two major wars but was successful in creating a whole new federal agency like ‘Homeland Security’. Bush authorized the establishment of Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and even suspended the privacy rights of the US Citizens. It was kind of a State of Emergency imposed by the executive branch. Congress fretted and fumed but did very little to curb his powers. In return, he guaranteed the safety of the people of US here at home. Not a single act of terrorism was committed on the soil of United States since 9/11, 2001. How many leaders around the world can boast of such an achievement? You may agree or disagree with the methodology but in a weird way he fulfilled his responsibilities as the Head of the State. Just THINK about it!

Eightieth anniversary of the Great Depression…

Next year, on October 29, 2009, it would be the eightieth anniversary of the Great Depression. Mine is the post depression generation. I do not know how it felt then, but it sure feels scary now! Are we heading for another depression after 80 long years? Probably! But you can bet on one thing for sure, it is not going to be simply another recession. This is big and profound. Once it is over, whenever that might be, the world would have lost anywhere from $40 trillion to as much as $90 trillion in assets. The collateral damage would be incalculable.

It is Tuesday September 16, 2008. That was also a Tuesday, October 29, 1929; the US Stock Market crashed that led to a worldwide economic contraction called The Great Depression. Although the causes of the Great Depression are still uncertain, the basic fact was a sudden loss of consumer confidence in the economic future of the country and therefore a run on the markets. This destroyed the Presidency of Herbert Hoover, and his Republican solutions further compounded the problems. President Herbert Hoover was defeated in 1932 general elections and Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933. Roosevelt introduced the ‘New Deal’ to mitigate the effects of The Great Depression.

The economic slump in North America, Europe and other parts of the industrialized world that began in 1929, lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western World. We all thought that we have learnt our lessons of our lifetime! President Ronald Reagan brought back the orthodox supply-side ideology with him in 1981 and once again we began the policies of President Calvin Coolidge that caused the depression in the first place. Any economic ideology is fraught with dangers that few can logically sustain. The so called progressive ideologies have done similar harm to the economies of Europe and Japan. When will we learn to moderate our economic ideologies?

Once again we are at the cross roads. Senator John McCain proposes a moderate supply-side economic policy. Senator Barack Obama counters that with moderate, progressive, economic solutions. Both proposals make me nervous. I want the next President to drive our economy at 65 miles per hour, neither at 60 miles, nor at 70 miles per hour. What I mean by that is that some regulatory oversight is imperative but over-reaction could plunge us into a certain depression. Neither candidate has assured me of the fiscal maturity that we all need so badly. I heard Bob Rubin and Lawrence Summers on Charlie Rose recently; I was frightened by their current views. Then I heard Nouriel Roubini and I went into a depression. You hear Roubini for yourself and makeup your mind. I, for one, would keep my options open at this point!

Nouriel Roubini – “a 12 to 18 month recession” (1 of 3)

Nouriel Roubini – “a 12 to 18 month recession” (2 of 3)

Nouriel Roubini – “a 12 to 18 month recession” (3 of 3)

Divided democracies and the lack of leadership…

Democracies around the world have become highly polarized and are in a state of constant grid-lock. There are basically two points of view prevailing in any democratic dispensation. Either you are with us or against us! There could also be a third point of view which is not so black or white but gray. In political terms it means, we are not completely with you or against you, we are open to discussion. I would put these people in a separate category and that is ‘open minded’, on both sides of the aisle. Ideology could be one of the reasons for this divide. Indifferent leadership is the other reason for this deep disconnect. This is not a sudden development. It has been happening for the last 50 years. Democracies have not been producing leaders like FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), anymore. I would not even put Churchill (Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill) in that August company. Republicans in America are ready to include Ronald Reagan in such world leadership, which he clearly was not. And that is the whole point. Neither Churchill nor Reagan were leaders of that caliber that the world would acknowledge them as leaders of international stature. The only world leader who has earned that respect in the last 50 years is, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a great opportunity to establish a ‘New World Order’. George Herbert Walker Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev failed to do that. Then again, September 11, 2001 presented another unique opportunity to America and President George W Bush. He failed to do anything meaningfull and change the world of politics. America has failed to produce a world class leader in the last 40 years or more. So has the rest of the world. There is no leader in sight anywhere in the world who could set the agenda to achieve great things in these wounderfull times. Let us take United States for example, the congress is equally divided and the executive is in constant conflict with the legislative branch. Supreme Court of the United States has been politicized since the infamous 2000 presidential elections.

Harry Truman was not ready to be the President!

Historians have the luxury of re-writing the history and they do it all the time. ‘Historical Biographies’ are rarely challenged because most of the historians belong to this exclusive club. Harry Truman and more recently Ronald Reagan are the two presidents who have been and are still being lionized by the historians. It does not matter whether they are stating the facts of just peddling their interpretations. Some of us who have lived through President Truman’s term recall the screw-ups differently. Just go through the newspapers of that time in America and around the world. Harry Truman was not the leader who led his country in the initial stages of his presidency. He was being led by the disgruntled bureaucracy from the times of FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt). When Truman was sworn in as President of the United States in April 1945, he had no clue as to what was happening around the world. He was kept completely out of the loop as far as the World War II was concerned. His early decisions were a testament to his complete ignorance as a politician and a President. FDR did not know or trust Senator Harry Truman.

The 1944 Democratic National Convention was held at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois from July 19 to July 21, 1944. The convention resulted in the re-nomination of US President Franklin Roosevelt for an unprecedented fourth term. Senator Harry S Truman of Missouri was nominated for vice president.

Former President Harry Truman opposing JFK nomination