Instead of a real change, Americans chose solutions for the next four years, whose effectiveness is questionable. What does this mean for Europe?
From the point of view of European liberals, there was no perfect candidate in this year’s U.S. presidential election. Americans could make a choice between a socializing liberal and a free-market conservative. In this arrangement, Mitt Romney would be the lesser evil but Americans chose differently.
Sometimes, it is said that our allies overseas “vote with wallets” or opt for such a candidate who will take care of the U.S. economy in the best way. However, times have changed and other factors begin to determine the success of the election.
Barack Obama campaigned with a noble motto “Forward”. But what does “forward” by Obama’s second administration mean? Higher taxes for the rich? Tax cuts for the poor? Continuing the growth of financial markets’ regulation in the spirit of the Dodd-Frank Act? Further quantitative easing? The next four years under Obama are not the time of America going forward. It will be another four years of the first term.
Obama-Bernanke duo did not manage to liven the U.S. economy during the last four years, so why would they succeed now? Mitt Romney’s economic program may not be perfect, but at least it has the added value that it would change the policy in DC. Isolationist and protectionist tones that underpinned his campaign would be quickly forgotten in the face of the pragmatics of the United States government.
Romney knows the right cure to the current crisis: free-market capitalism based on entrepreneurial Americans. Perhaps, had he become the president, every state could begin to resemble the Silicon Valley.
During Obama’s second term the United States have a fair chance, in the words of Thomas Wroblewski (leading Polish publicist ), to become “the American European Union” – inert, bureaucratic to the point of absurdity and an interventionist, inefficient behemoth that could fall over at any moment. Central planning and control is not a good idea to manage the economy. Even the Communists in Beijing realized that.
After the election, the majority of Polish media and commentators were happy that Obama won. For American style liberals and leftists in Poland, Romney was too conservative. But on the other hand, the majority of economists believe that the reelection of Obama is not a good sign for the economy. The reaction of the stocks worldwide proves them right.
Barack Obama will not bring America out of the economic hole. He will not make the United States reverse the trend and begin to make up for losses in competition with China. Plunging his country into a recession, he will make it cross the Atlantic and reach the Old Continent. Barack Obama has a chance to fulfill the Declan Ganley’s dream and lend a hand to the disintegration of the European Union.
New-old president of the United States is not a type of a fighter. He is not a man of action. He doesn’t know what it means to create and develop his own business. Barack Obama is a man who believes that “if you achieved success in business, you were not alone in achieving that.”
This is not a good president for the bad times. Therefore, European leaders instead of breaking up the summits, must get to a common, energetic and effective work to alleviate the coming recession. We can’t expect that we will see a repeat of the ‘40s – there won’t be a new Marshall’s plan. We need to manage this by ourselves. Barack Obama won’t help Europe. Only integrated, freedom-orientated Europe will help us overcame the upcoming recession.
