Americans should be happy because soon the darkest time for their country since world war two will be over. Bush will be gone and America will begin to wake from the long, eight-year nightmare. Then, the real work will begin. The first step for Americans will be to measure the true extent of the disaster. The mood is somber here because it’s just dawning on us how bad things are! Between plunging home prices, staggering credit card debt, and soaring energy and food costs, the average American family is pretty near broke. The dollar is practically worthless, so Americans can’t afford to keep importing consumer goods and few will be going abroad on vacations this summer.
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| Why Russia should help America |
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Maybe some snooty Parisians will think that’s a good thing, but the rest of Europe will soon miss those chubby American tourists and their lovely green dollars. And of course, Washington is embroiled in two hopeless wars that will continue to bleed the country white for the foreseeable future. But from the Russian perspective, this all sounds like pathetic whining. Americans, who don’t even know what real suffering is, are simply getting a long overdue comeuppance. So who cares? What does this have to do with Russia? The short answer is plenty. Russia needs a strong America. The two world superpowers and old allies still need each other, if purely out of self -interest.
If America, like an economic drunk driver, crashes into a long, deep recession and drags Asia and Europe down with it, the price of oil (and other commodities) will plunge. That won’t be good for Russia. If the dollar continues crashing, cheap American goods and services will flood global markets, outcompeting the Europeans, who are Russia’s best energy customers. And if the dollar falls low enough, it could provoke another currency crisis, just like in the late 1990s. That would be terrible timing, with the Russian Ruble set to float in global currency exchange markets. It could drive a new round of inflationary pressures in Russia, as risk adverse traders flock to safer currencies like the Euro and the Pound.
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