When Bigger Isn't Better

I know I just blogged about the economy and I know I said how we need to fix it.  I didn't say how we shouldn't fix it.  Libertyhound has mentioned that free money isn't the way to go.  I'd like to bring up two other policies that will have a negative effect on the global economy.

The first is allowing the International Monetary Fund to grow in power.  We have heard about the ails of inflation in one country or another.  While it would be true that if the IMF gave the same amount of money to every country then every currency would inflate at the same rate and therefore not at all, would that actually happen?  The International Monetary Fund Managing Director, Dominique Straus-Kahn, said that it was shameful how the major economies weren't looking at the global nature of the crisis.  This lends to the thought that the IMG would work hard to make sure that the developing economies are able to stay level-headed.  Thus the dollar would inflate so that other nations would improve while we suffer.  Unfortunately for Ms. Straus-Kahn, the US practically dictates IMF policy, to the detriment of many Middle East leaders.  Making the IMF bigger would not only help smaller countries (who we already help) to the detriment of our economy, it would take the power to fix it out of our hands.  Corruption doesn't go away the higher up you go.  In fact, political and governmental corruption grosses $1 trillion a year globally.

The other way to hurt our economy is to reinstate policies similar to Smoot-Hawley.  We cannot begin to start focusing solely on our own country's problems in this crisis.  I know that sounds hypocritical, but give me a minute to explain.  We cannot say 'Buy American' and expect that to fix everything.  The reasons are two fold: our products are not made here and our consumerism drives the global economy.  If we stop spending money on foreign goods then the push to strengthen the IMF will grow and then China will take all financial control away from us since they own us.  After years of outsourcing, we should know that formerly American brands are now made overseas and companies like Toyota are putting plants here.

So how do these two seemingly opposed concepts work together?  By changing the mindset of American politics and economics.  We must take a step back from the policies embodied by George W. Bush.  We are not the sheriff of the world.  We must work with other nations, developed and developing, peaceful and beligerent, secular and religious, to pull out of this crisis.  Roosevelt didn't save the global economy because he started WWII (he didn't, it's a joke), he joined with world leaders to fight the threat of Nazism and while the entire world was joined in a common cause we were able to then, and only then, face the challenges of that age.  We must allow other countries to share their good ideas and we must force ourselves to admit when we are wrong.  We cannot do this alone and we cannot allow one group tell us how to fix this.  United we stand.