US elections

The United States of America is going to have a new president on November 4th, 2008. This campaign is without doubt the most vicious campaign ever. For the first time in the history of this country, there might be either a (half) black president or a female vice-president. To add even more pressure to this time’s presidential race, there is a financial crisis upon us, making people more anxious to know who will be the next president of the United States. With the election just days away, tension is building up on both presidential candidates.

This campaign is without doubt the most history presidential race in the history of the United States of America. Since 2002, Hillary Clinton had “expressed interest” to the press that she will run for the presidential nomination of 2008. This was the first time that a woman has ever has ever won the nomination of a major party in the history of U.S. presidential campaigns. As she was the only woman, she stood out quite well compared to all the nominees. In 2007, she received a new rivalry in the elections. Barack Obama, a black nominee emerged to race against her. This was drawing up questions within the Democratic Party. Should they vote for a first woman president or a first black president? Because either way, it was going to be history. After months of rallying, fighting and struggling, it became clear that Obama was winning her with almost half the votes moving from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. On June 3, 2008, Obama finally beat her. Now Obama was without doubt the new center of attention. He attracted the attention of many people because if he wins, he will be the country’s first black president.

Through the months, Obama seemed to have the attention of a lot of people most likely because of his race. John McCain on the other hand, had been watching the fight among the two Democratic nominees and finally will have to start rallying. However, it seems like every time there are any results showing the percentage of supporters each nominee have, Obama always seem to be in the 50s and McCain only in the 40s. Last month, Senator McCain announced that he has chosen Alaskan governor Sara Palin to be his vice-president, probably hoping to win over some Hillary supporters and /or women voters. That immediately attracted a lot of criticism, even among women. Many believe she doesn’t have what it takes to be vice-president or president if anything happened to McCain. So Obama is still in the lead.

Now it seems quite clear and quite likely that Obama will win. He seems to be a very good talker, like his “Yes We Can” speech, has attracted a lot of attention. Hopefully, he is as good as he claims and will fix our current Economic Crisis that is not only threating the stability of America, but also of the global economy. If he does win, we will be living in one of the most historical moments in the History of the United States of America.

Finanacial Crisis

The US financial crisis, which started last year, is getting worst and because the world is quite dependent on the US economy. Now that major companies such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae needs to be bailout. Lehman Brothers, a company that survived the Great Depression, just went bankrupt, and everyone around the world is panicking. Many believe that what is coming is worse than the Great Depression. Does it mean whatever is up coming is worst than the Great Depression? Alan Greenspan said it himself that this is the worst crisis in a hundred years. What's going to happen now? At a crisis time like this, the Presidential Campaign is more important than ever.

Most people believe that this started with the subprime mortgage last year. But since the beginning of 2005, the US housing bubble has been building and investors and economists back then had already warned that this was going to happen. People in the US get their hands on cash too easily. All they have to do is go to the bank and borrow money. The banks are suppose to check if their client have the ability to pay back their debts before they lend out their money. If they believe their clients do not have the ability to pay back their debts, their clients can’t borrow any money from them. Even if they believe if their clients have the ability to pay back their debts, the banks still require an asset of equal value collateral. The problem here is that the banks in the US, as according to some analysis, is that they have made money too easily to be borrowed. People have a lot of cash with them, they spend it but now they can’t pay it back to the banks. The banks lose a lot of money and that is what it seems to be happening now.

The American general public is also suffering. This is due to inflation. The prices of many goods and services have risen and people are having trouble paying for them. Small businesses are having trouble keeping their doors open because the expenses have become too high. There have been criticism and protests that the US government’s bailout plan is only for the rich Wall Street companies while “mom and pop” business have to suffer. Present George Bush’s response was, however, that this was essential.

Despite the efforts, many have already lost their confidence in the US economy and are well aware that it is going into a recession, and quite possibly, a depression. Is it going to be like the Great Depression of 1929? Is this history repeating itself? Or will the economy pull it off? And what's going to happen to us now?