President Elect Obama's Honeymoon in a Hurricane

You are here

President Elect Obama's Honeymoon in a Hurricane

Login or Create an Account

With a UCG.org account you will be able to save items to read and study later!

Sign In | Sign Up

×

The storm clouds of economic distress and offshore conflicts that most Americans love to hate have gathered considerable momentum during Mr. Obama's two year campaign for the White House. Now he must do more than talk, he must deal with them.

America's Economic Challenge

Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt 75 years ago in the depth of the Great Depression, Mr. Obama will start his administration in a national financial crisis.

In the early stages of the Great Depression, unemployment surged to 25% of the workforce, with 13 million people out of work. Industrial production fell by nearly 45% between 1929 and 1932. New home construction dropped by 80% between 1929 and 1932. Also from 1929 to 1932 about 5000 banks went out of business.

The probability of another prolonged economic downslide is significant if not high.  We have already gone through the first stage. As Executive Editor of U.S. News and World Report Mortimer Zuckerman wrote in its October 20, 2008 issue: "Everyone is haunted by the fear that our financial crisis might unwind into something like the Great Depression. The world of finance is undergoing a 100-year storm, inflicting the worst destruction of wealth in our history." 

Worse than in the initial stages of the Great Depression, Americans in the last year and a half have seen about $20 trillion dollars—about a third—of their net worth wiped out though stock and other financial asset losses in retirement portfolios along with a crash in the values in their homes. 

Housing construction is 70% below the levels of two years ago and consumer spending is declining, while the unemployment rate of 6% threatens to skyrocket even amidst the government bailouts of one sector after another of the economy.

America's Wars

In his two year quest for the White House Mr. Obama constantly spoke of America's wars in the Middle East as failures. Even after the U.S. military "surge strategy" stabilized Iraq's civil war of Shiites against Sunnis, he has proclaimed the war in Iraq to be a policy failure of the United States.  

Now his assessment will become the official position of his administration, with potentially huge consequences to American policy in that region and throughout the world. Furthermore, Mr. Obama sees the War in Afghanistan as failing. He has vowed to "get Osama bin Laden" with military incursions into Pakistan if necessary.

What will Mr. Obama do as he begins dismantling the foreign policy of his predecessor? What will be the effect to U.S. standing in the world? He will be facing a long list of choices, each having dramatic consequences in the whole world.

America's Spiritual Challenge

Mr. Obama proclaimed in his victory speech that the United States is the beacon of hope for the world and its people. His implication is that the United States is more than a mere political entity.

To those who know and understand the Bible, America became this beacon Mr. Obama talks about because its very existence is the fulfillment of ancient biblical promises. God promised the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob prominence among the nations. In these countries the laws of God can generally be freely practiced. The Bible has made a profound contribution to America's laws, customs and freedom of religion.

God has indeed given America its opportunity to be a beacon of the truth that He preserved for mankind in the Bible. It has been the place where, in large measure, all people could freely practice those godly principles.

Mr. Obama's greatest challenge will lie in rightly understanding the spiritual priorities God has for giving United States the abundance of blessings it has received. It is for us to pray for Mr. Obama—as the apostle Paul admonished Timothy the evangelist:  "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence" (1 Timothy 2:1-2).