"Michele Bachmann".. Tina Fey made this up right ?

So straight off the bat I have to admit that I honestly thought Michele Bachmann was a satirical creation of the very funny Tina Fey and not a democratically elected representative of the state of Minnesota. For this realisation I’m a little embarrassed but in my defense I do need to stress that a: I'm a Brit whose never been to Minneapolis and b: I’ve never had the courage to watch more than 20 seconds of Fox News without copious amounts of alcohol… With this in mind WOW, first impressions stick and this is a VERY scary lady! I always wondered how anyone with half a brain could take Sarah Palin seriously but in comparison to this lady good old Sarah looks almost as diplomatic as Henry Kissinger. I've just listened to a barrage of nonsense on how bailouts are “UnAmerican” and how “this socialist terrorist supporting gangster President” is single handedly destroying the American dream... Ok, pause for thought… How embarrassed must whomever this lady beat in her election feel right about now, he or she must have either been a close personal friend of Genghis Khan or otherwise been in a Coma the year the election took place !

In fairness I think I need to do a chunk of background reading and find time to watch the other 27,876 YouTube clips on offer before I consider myself in anyway educated as to this individuals politics or sanity however on the “We hate Bailouts” rhetoric let me just mention this… No one anywhere in the democratic world would of rational mind be in favour of putting tax payers money at risk to prop up failing private enterprise however for the US version of this global story 100% of why the economic world nearly stopped spinning was due to her own partys utter ineptness for 8 years at implementing any form of fiscal austerity. TARP (the program that started dishing out the money) was a necessary Republican creation that was cemented by Henry Paulson who as Michele should recall wasn’t a gangsta socialist democrat but rather her beloved George Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury and former head honcho of Goldman Sachs etc etc… How any of this is conceivably Obama’s fault I’m failing to understand as all he seems to have done is made sure that the bailouts that had already taken place and those that were sadly pending were actually carried out with some semblance of professional responsibility. As I say, in an ideal world these measures would never have been necessary but as sadly they were what exactly would she have preferred as an alternative ? Citigroup, AIG, Bank Of America, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley at an absolute minimum all gone to chapter 11, GM, Chrysler, virtually every auto related parts supplier & the entire US Home building business gone to Chapter 7, 4 – 5 million more Americans unemployed, un insured and looking for (heaven forbid) social welfare to help feed their children on a daily basis. Tax revenues at a 50year low, property values in line with Albania, the $ crushed by another 30% on the global exchanges and the last sliver of global respect gone the same way as that slashed over the last 8 years? To her credit one benefit I guess she might see as offsetting all this would likely be that immigration of nasty non Caucasians wouldn’t be such a problem as all the spare gardening jobs would be being snapped up by Harvard Law graduates leaving no good reason for any other unskilled labour to venture north.

With half way sensible management the US has come back from the brink of utter disaster over the past 12 months in a recovery Rocky Balboa would have been proud of. With stocks up 75% from their March 09 lows, 80% of S&P 500 companies beating analysts estimates in Q1 2010 and the $ having halted its global slide the US is looking again at a sunny potential in its mid to long term future. The VAST majority of tax payers money has either been already paid back with significant interest or those companies still carrying the IOU’s are looking look much healthier today and stand a much better chance of clearing their burden than anyone really believed possible at inception. Even AIG, that great pariah in the sky, will one day repay its debts in full and I’m sure the UAW must on reflection be happy that with Toyota’s demise GM & Ford are still making good old American cars in Detroit. Bailouts whilst never desired have saved the American economy from Armageddon over the past 2 years so seriously Ms Bachmann please consider the alternatives and the history before engaging your vocal cords once again.