A Woman's World Economic View

I. The United States
You know we've been in a recession. If you're employed, you're probably nervous about keeping your job. And if you're unemployed, you know we've been in recession better than I could ever tell you.

It's up to the National Bureau of Economic Research to provide the official beginning and ending dates for recessions, and if you're interested in how they do it, you can read about it here. For the rest of us, we saw a banking crisis start late last year, and while we may not have known the details of how it happened, we certainly knew why.

We saw every Jane, Jean and Judy buying houses they couldn't afford, getting a mortgage based on her ability to fog a mirror, and saw real estate prices zoom upward - like the Internet stock prices did in the late 1990's. A familiar pattern, with a familiar "pop" end the end of the bubble, accompanied by falling housing prices.

Then we really saw the force of this nasty recession.

Unlike the past, though, it is not the US that is leading the world out of recession. We're mired in debt and have failed to pass even one piece of financial reform legislation more than a year after causing a worldwide economic downturn. Although we appear to have stopped our economy from shrinking, we expect anemic growth at best for the next year or so.

II. Our Place in the World Economy

From the end of WWII through the remainder twentieth century, the US was the world's economic powerhouse. A significant reason for that was attributable to "good old Yankee ingenuity." During the war, we focused our best and brightest toward the war effort. Because military technology at that time had civilian application, our best minds transitioned easily from the war effort to consumer technology.

In the latter part of the 1900s, the US voted with our pocketbooks to stop looking for the union label and outsourced much of our manufacturing to countries who could produce our goods with lower employment costs. As a result, we became less a manufacturer and more a service provider to the world. Our techies were golden, and Wal-Mart, our merchant.

We imported much more than we exported, and became a debtor nation to our manufacturers, especially China. Thus, a great wealth transfer took place in the so-called "third world," where manufacturing jobs expanded feverishly. The Chinese built an enormous middle class from their export business.

Now, they finance about 25% of our national debt, which is the sum of all the deficits, or overspending we have accumulated every year - plus interest. For a look at our historic debt levels, read my July 15 article.

III. Popular Misconception

There is no doubt that our deficit is high. Without mitigating the seriousness of that situation, though, understanding China's reliance on the US as a major buyer of their manufactured goods is critically important as we evaluate our status as a debtor nation. Their population has accepted Communist rule with an unspoken financial contract that it expects to reap the benefits of newly acquired wealth. Should China stop buying our debt, which continues to be the highest quality in the world, it will also assist in further lessening the value of our dollar and likely fuel an inflationary fall into another recession.

Smart sellers don't bankrupt their main customers, and China is not stupid.

Further, while anyone can see that both China and India have been growing rapidly, we are not on the verge of losing our position as the primary financial powerhouse in the world. Much has been made of the meager savings rate in the States as compared with the thrifty Chinese. Upon closer look, however, it's apparent that the Chinese are thrifty largely because they cannot rely on their government to care for them. For example, the Chinese social security system currently has $94 per retiree, according to Steven Roach, head of Asian Operations at Morgan Stanley. Yes, our system also has problems, as the Social Security trust fund remains an IOU by Congress, but ours does have a long, unbroken history of payment. The Chinese are accustomed to caring for themselves during disasters, both natural and financial, and therefore tend to put more aside.

Last, while we attempt to once again define ourselves as the technological leader in such growth industries as "green technology," we have, without question, both the best institutions of higher learning that are necessary for cutting edge research and development, and an open door to the best minds in the world.

Having taught math-based analysis courses at UCLA, I can attest to the great difficulty I had during roll call in our first sessions. These unpronounceable names were from every corner of the world, and the university was delighted to have them.

Once again, a combination of our open door to great world minds, with Silicon Valley innovation may be our economic savior, moving from high technology to green energy, and selling it to the world.

IV. Future Course

Once we have economic stability and a health care policy that will not bankrupt our country, our next priority must be to get our financial house in order. Let's look what high debt does to the country by personalizing it a bit. Let's say you earn $60,000 per year. After taxes, you net $4,000 per month. Your mortgage payment is $1,500 per month, you have a second mortgage of $500 for major home repairs, your car payment is $600, and you have eight credit cards on which you pay an aggregate monthly payment of $850. That leaves you only $550 every month for food, clothes, medical, utilities, gasoline and car repairs, movies, and all other incidental expenses. You're in trouble. You're probably increasing your credit card debt every month, paying for necessities you couldn't afford after paying your debt. So, your credit card debt is growing, and you're barely hanging on.

Magnify that situation, and you have our Federal government. Yes, we had to pass the stimulus package to save ourselves from financial ruin. Yes, we have to address the unsustainably high cost of health care. But once that's done, we must cut expenses and pay down our debt, just like the person in our example, or risk the future of our economy.

We must also acknowledge that, within the next century, the US will be one of the world financial powerhouses, but not the only one. If China learns to cooperate with the rule of international trade, and if India streamlines its impossibly difficult tangle of red tape, than a less indebted US will share its position with them.

V. What We Do

What we do matters. We shopped at Wal-Mart. By doing so, we exported manufacturing jobs.

Now, we must demand that our deficits be reduced and focus on educating our young people to work in a much more competitive and complex world.

Education has always been a women's issue. We know that the answer to education is not primarily money. It's a contract between teachers, parents and children that excellence is expected, and failure is failure on a world order.

What we do matters.