My Word for August 20, 2001

The headline in a recent edition of the New York Times read World's Economy Slows to a Walk in Rare Lock Step.

Secondary headline: Big Surprise Is Europe Which Thought It Could Avoid a Downturn as in the U.S.

Sorry, but I gotta go after the Europeans again.

Remember when Pres. Bush was getting whacked for saying he would not follow the Kyoto accords because it may hurt the U.S. economy?

He wouldn't say it outright at the time, but I thought it and you thought it and everybody with a micron of a brain thought it: if our economy tanks, so does the world's. Europe included.

But we didn't want to upset the egos of our sensitive European allies, who have got to thinking lately that they could just live off Euros and not worry too much about business coming to them from the U.S.

Now we are told by the oracle itself, the mighty New York Times that ... gasp ... get this ... stop the presses: in a global economy, local economies like Europe's are connected to an economy like that of the U.S., and if the U.S. goes bad, so does everybody else.

Wow. What a shocker.

So it turns out that when Pres. Bush was kissing off Kyoto as a pile of tripe that would force businesses out of business, he was acting in the best interest of not only the United States but Europe too.

They called him a dope, and a rube, and a Texas manure stomper becaue he was interested in keeping the U.S. economy going. How selfish of him, they said. How low brow. How American.

Let's say it slow so those who use English as a business language don't fall behind. If the people in America don't have the spending power to buy stuff made in China and Japan and Britain and Germany and France, then people in those places who make things they'd like to sell to Americans suffer.

So if Kyoto would put Americans out of jobs, Americans couldn't buy BMW's and Italian suits and other stuff.

It made sense to Pres. Bush. It made sense to me. It made sense to you.

But we were the dummies, until the New York Times declared it so today.

It's the global economy, stupid.

If America slows, so does the globe. So Mr. and Mrs. Europe, do your part to keep your own economy going good. Make sure America is humming along nicely. You'll be much happier, and according to the New York Times, which says it knows a lot about these things, you'll be much more prosperous.

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