I watched in awe today as members in the US House of Representatives failed to pass the 700 billion dollar bailout package. How could this possibly be? All the signals from President Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that if something was not done soon, we would all be doomed. McCain even “suspended” his campaign because this impending crisis was so urgent. Yet, 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted against this bill. To make matters worse, it seemed as though the impending doom was correctly predicted. As the votes were tallied on the floor, Wall Street watched and the Dow Jones dropped 788 points, its lowest point drop in history.
After taking a moment to calm down (and contemplating whether I should convert my dollars to pesos- Mike’s suggestion), I realized this all this drama may not be as dire as some would want the American public to believe. The Republican Party may be making this crisis seem worse for strategic purposes, which I will explain more about below. However, I want to talk about why this crisis may not be as bad as it seems.
More after the jump…