BoomerGirl Diary

A few days ago, on the Huffington Post, there was a side story that beckoned for attention. “Gisele Refuses to Strut Stuff for Depreciating Dollars,” blared the headline. Clicking on the story ultimately takes the reader to the Bloomberg News website, where the full story unfolds: super-ubermodel Gisele Bundchen is requiring that those who hire her not only NOT pay her in USD, but in fact, pay her in anything BUT USD. It goes on:

Like billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, the Brazilian supermodel, who Forbes magazine says earns more than anyone in her industry, is at the top of a growing list of rich people who have concluded that the currency can only depreciate because Americans led by President George W. Bush are living beyond their means.

The article goes on to paint just about the bleakest picture of the American economy in my memory. Since the Prevaricator-in-Chief took office in 2001, the dollar has lost roughly one-third of its value, and most economists say it will weaken further. Already it is at its lowest level ever against the euro, the Canadian dollar, the Chinese yuan, and has hit a quarter-century low against the British pound.

Of course, there’s an upside to all of this: our goods can be sold cheaply abroad, and the tourism industry is likely to do well. But this is not good news and if King George ever took responsibility for his behavior, he’d at least own up to stupid statements, made after September 11 as well as the last election that exhort us all to go to the malls and spend money. Bundchen and her wealthy compatriots have concluded that it is precisely this behavior-spending money until we’ve spent beyond our means — that has contributed to the dollar’s decline.

Maybe I’m more upset about this than most people. I have a son who wants to go to Spain next year, and I’d like to help him. Hell, I’d like to go visit him! So it was a puzzlement to me that, in all the bloviating during the last twenty debates, the economy and our falling dollar were not even a blip on the radar screens of either the candidates or the moderators.

Now I find that it’s not just me who was weirded out by this. Charlie Cook, author of the Cook Political Report, is as well, and he has a few ideas about why we’re not talking. In a nutshell, he thinks it may be because it’s just too damn scary to talk about:

“.…..exactly how would you address the problems of deficits, runaway spending and entitlements? You would have to raise taxes, cut programs that are near and dear to somebody's heart, and cut entitlements or make them based on need. Is there a fear among candidates of opening Pandora's box?”

Alas, Charlie is right. We can sit here all day and argue about spendthrift conservatives, who didn’t meet a spending bill they didn’t like until Democrats took over. And relatedly, we can marvel (if we’re gullible) about how Bush has finally found religion on the issue of runaway spending. But until we get some politicians with guts-who want to deal with these problems and not just score political points against their enemies-we are going to continue further into the abyss. For years, Republicans have talked the talk about fiscal restraint. But it was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who did what he had to do and got the budget under control the last time.

I’m counting on my Democrats again. And so, apparently is Warren Buffett.