ON THE PRECIPICE

America finds itself on the edge of a financial precipice. Who can pull us back?
Certainly not the politicians who put us there.
Every American should be outraged that Standard and Poors downgraded America's credit rating. This is one of several financial rating agencies which blindly stamped triple-A ratings on multi-billions of bundled sub-prime mortgages (and pocketing huge fees for doing so) that led to the 2008 financial collapse in this country and across the globe.
Still, Standard and Poors is not to blame for this country's current crisis.
We are - at least those of us who vote and increasingly demand largess from our government.
America has been building its mountain of debt since before World War II and we have allowed our politicians to continue to grow a behemoth federal government that is not only in danger of imploding under the weight of the national debt, but imploding the savings of every American by unleashing unbridled inflation and providing no future for the estimated 17-million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed.
President Obama should immediately fire his hapless Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, and bring in a no nonsense businessman, with proven financial leadership skills, to lay out a plan to rescue the American economy and preserve the American dream for those who come after us.
Retired General Electric chief Jack Welch comes to mind. Welch rebuilt the fabled American company only to have to hand it over to an inept Jeff Immelt, who currently heads the President's failed Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Under Immelt's leadership, GE is currently moving thousands of medical equipment manufacturing jobs to China where workers are paid a fraction of U.S. wages. How's that for hope and change and leadership!
Donald Trump has voiced some strong ideas for bringing jobs back to our shores and rebuilding our national prosperity. The Donald would slap a tariff on all Chinese imported goods (sorry Mr. Immelt) which could bring some of those lost American jobs back to this country. Trump would also force the Chinese communist government to float the yuan, something our timid elected officials have been reluctant to do, which would allow truly "fair" trade between our countries.
There are many more highly qualified and able business leaders who could be tapped.
The President and the incompetent people with whom he continues to surround himself, should play more golf or shoot more hoops and allow better minds to tackle the nation's problems.
In the meantime, Congress should reconvene immediately and rescind the debt agreement that allowed the Obama Administration to borrow almost three- trillion more dollars without deeper cuts in spending. Congress needs to move decisively to enact emergency, across-the-board cuts at every level of the federal government, including the salaries of members of congress and their army of aides.
That America finds itself in this position is unconscionable. We need, nee should demand, new minds, with strong financial acumen, to "focus like a laser" on solving the debt crisis and get Americans back to work quickly.
If we could mobilize American industry and resources in less than a year to fight a world war thousands of miles from our shores in 1942, America can mobilize its God-gifted resources and minds to move us quickly away from the debt precipice that threatens to eclipse future economic growth and prosperity.