Getting off the roller coaster ride is no mean feat and trying to succeed in an economy that swings wildly from total anarchy to total monopolism isn't easy for anyone. So don't be suprised that an extremist minority of ambitious economic monopolists will attempt to exploit the nation's shift away from economic policies that favor nations that don't exactly play fair with us.

The U.S. Government is as much to blame for the nationalistic and socialistic initiatives that have gripped the imagination of a significant number of economic players in the world with the recklessly expansionist credit policies exploited by the Bush Administration to fund it's social experiment in Iraq. The response by a number of economically growing and increasingly influential nations on the world stage, including those in South America, has been to nationalize and socialize their economies to protect them against the militarist, internationalist and quite imperialistic economic ideology of the Bush Administration.

As we take stock of where these credit-hungry and internationalist policies have taken us we will be tempted to swing at full throttle in the other direction, monopolist policies that our best trading partners have already begun to gaurd against. For example, the European Union already has a policy in place to punish American companies that they regard as dangerous, for example, Microsoft.

Microsoft has been fined billions, billions significant enough to be causing even mighty Microsoft trouble, for the draconian measures they have been caught using to keep their phenomenal marketshare. It has taken these kinds of fines, both in the EU and in the US, to convince Microsoft to sweeten it's deals with partners to help manage that marketshare without violating the rule of law. And that's not the only example. Trading partners are watching U.S. politics regarding the economy very carefully and will be quick to stop U.S. economic players from attempts to shift the blame for ideological mistakes that they willingly supported only a few years before.

Microsoft is a giant, it represents a progressive technology and has led nothing less that a revolution in media, communications and the humbling of a media news tyrant that dominated American opinion for a generation. But as we have seen, when they have grown too arrogant, they have been punished. And the punishment for arrogance has not stopped.

Trading partners watch the fits of outrage in Congress when an American company fails to secure a large airplane contract. They read outraged bloggers that castigate foreigners and blame Iraqis for our military invasion of their country. They see U.S. politicians attempting to curry favor from the very U.S. districts that would be the first to lead a charge against them. They watch as CEOs try to convince airline commuters and shareholders that it's the competition that's causing them their airline delays, when in fact, a little digging reveals that it's the airline's policies regarding 'hubbing' that contribute as much or more so to problems as competition.

Economic reform in this kind of environment is a minefield and requires moderation and firm resistance to ideas that the U.S. Government is capable of saving the economic fatted lamb from itself with such broad, centralized economic ideas as put forth by a would-be 'McCain Administration', or, in most respects, at all. Nor will our trading partners lower their gaurd for what they may percieve, with some good cause, as similar 'fixing' strategies that the Clinton dynasty would have you believe are responsible for the economic success stories of the 90s.

The collapse of the Soviet economy, the release of billions of dollars from the Defense budgets and a very high volume in arms sales to nations like Turkey are as much responsible for those stories as what President William Jefferson Clinton's economic advisors may want you to repeat. As well the gains made by companies that converted to money saving technologies made available by companies like Microsoft, those conversions done largely by idealistic and excited 'office nerds' who did such work on their own time and voluntarily, for the mere joy of watching the revolution grow. These companies made billions from these conversions to the new ways of doing operations. And were these employees rewarded? No. Why is there no strong IT workers union in the United States despite this? Why is the epithet 'geek' still used by corporate managers and company advertising? Because of the economic ideology espoused by their strategists and the opportunity seized upon by war. Privateers is what these type of individuals used to be called. It wasn't a compliment.

We do not play in a world of economic children, who will be convinced by the purity of intention, nor are our trading partners suckers for a good sob story. It will require cool heads and a renewed commitment to egalitarian, fair and responsible trade policy to win back the trust of partners who will not soon forget the legacies left by Government sponsorship of companies like Halliburton and Blackwater. Merely lowering the gun that has been pointed at their heads will be insufficient. They will judge us by the impartialies of our law and our committment to the rule of law, and will be wary of any attempts by our citizens to hold them responsible for what has been done to them in the name of the war on terror or a 'Pax Americana'. That capital has been spent.

These are the same nations that suffered terribly from another nation that refused to reform it's ultra-expansionist ways and blamed them for the failure of it's ideology, but the golden age days in which grateful Europeans curried favor with American saviors has passed and policies that will now reveal Americans as poor sports who are going to take their ball and go home will not play well with them. That capital has been spent as well.

The changes made to U.S. trade policies will have to be calm, measured and supported by reasonable argument, not criticism and blame, or the U.S. economy will suffer more damage than it already has.

Thanks for reading,
Donald C. Lindsay
Obama, 08