Financial Armageddon a threat to democracy

So,

In this a age of modern technology where information is instant some problems never change and that is receiving relevant, accurate and timely information and interpreting the information you are presented with efficiently without allowing yourself to be swamped or swayed by the panic and emotions of yourself and those around you.

Great men in dramatic situations aren't the cleverest they are the ones which are best informed and able to quickly and efficiently work out what are the key pieces of information they are being presented with and then acting decisively. One day they will be able to test this skill and traditionally I guess they would have called it calmness of thought or having a steady hand.

The television I look at now is swamping me with information and the internet provides even more on this so called credit crunch. Bear Stearns was rescued America nationalized its mortgage market and one of America's great financial institutions today has collapsed as America's properties continue to decline in value. Alan Greenspan says this is a once in a century act without doubt he is correct but as a child of a great democracy he doesn't quite grasp what the real problem is, in the heat of the moment my interpretation would take his argument further.

Magazines such as the Economist and most economic writers blindly follow and write about the market as being the best system to distribute resources and power forward economies and the world. Laissez faire is the idelogy we should follow liberalism.

This idea is being challenged and with political economic and successful alternatives arising in the world the Western liberal democratic system is under attack as the best means of running a country.

Western Intellectuals need to realize that now more than ever we need to question our way of running our countries and economies, we need a rebirth of ideas and of economic management without this democracy could be on a potentially fatal death march. It doesn't need to be but we need careful thought about the limitations and problems in the way our countries are governed and managed.

Sarah Palin is very scary, not because of where she comes from, not because she carries a gun but because she is quite simply stupid. Listen to her interview here and cry. This is a problem and challenge to democracy if because an idiot is like us we will elect them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jvfm8tn_Cw

When President Trueman fired General Macarthur during the Korean war it was because he was a wise thoughtful and clever man. The USA could have gone Nuclear and that would have had disastrous consequences for the world.

So it is with Financial crisis the markets have failed totally, utterly and completely this is a challenge to capitalism and the liberal democratic approach of managing them. The USA went socialist the other week when it nationalized its mortgage market.

If idiots continue to be elected to govern countries then effectively decisions will not be made by leaders but by experts who are able to grasp the problem or interest groups who are able to sway the leaders.

They should be informing leaders but if they are not clever enough to understand the problem they will not be making the decision and sorry but Sarah Palin is no Magaret Thatcher who had a degree in Science from one of the world's greatest university. She maybe more like us than Mrs Thatcher but that means she is even less capable of running a country

This is a challenge to the greatest system of government and economic management the world has produced. Fukuyama wrote about the end of History if we are not careful due to the rise of the East and alternative Political Economic systems, our financial mismanagement and our blind faith in the market is always right, the power of the media and the rule of the mob meaning idiots get elected, the short termism that is perhaps endemic such as quarterly profit drivers and a 4 year election cycle with a two year campainging period, may lead to the end of democracy.

This is the challenge facing us as we move forward.