In a few hours from now, the Asian Markets will open, all weekend the concerns have been growing as to how badly Standard and Poor's downgrade of the U.S.'s credit rating from AAA to AA+ will affect the Asian financial markets.
In the city state of Singapore a few money changers over the weekend were either were refusing to accept the US dollar or grudgingly accepting it on parity with the US dollar.
Faith in the greenback and faith in America's financial strength, stability and leadership are now gone. The hardest thing to accept I suppose as an American here is the realization that this dethroning or change as Barack Obama likes to call it is irreversible. The debt crisis was but one of many factors contributing to our fall from grace. It didn't help having a president who did not believe in the greatness of our nation. Needless to say, when our president believes that American Exceptionalism is nothing more than a myth, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our role as the sole remaining superpower in the world is now over. Our role in Southeast Asia as a partner and defender of peace and freedom has now come to an end. This isn't pessimism my friends this is the reality, a reality that many Americans will ultimately need to come to terms with. You see, at the end of the day, it is all about confidence, and once the confidence is gone then there is not much left. Confidence in our currency and our nation would require a president and government that is attuned to brand-building not to self-deprecation. The world wants to see America as that bright city on the hill, a leader and not simply a nation who sees themselves as one of the guys.
If you are wondering if the confidence can ever be restored - sure it can. Pay back the 14.7 trillion and then the confidence might slowly return. Other than that, no amount of half-measures or talk is ever going to undo the damage done. Paying back the trillions in debt would require cuts in spending that would be too painful for Americans to accept and as such Americans will need to get used to their new role in the world, a role that Obama envisioned for us.
The problems America has are not just financial though, American themselves are to blame. You see it is not Obama that ails us, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.
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