Dear Mr. Berko: Our economy is having trouble with its finances and the consumer is temporarily tapped out. But I don't think it is 10 percent as bad as you indicated to us when you spoke in Dayton, Ohio. Our exports have been holding us up like strong support columns and should continue until the consumer gets back on his feet. Many here believe, me included, that our economy will easily turn around when Barack Obama assumes the office of president of the United States. In fact, Obama told us that this economic malaise is only a short-term phenomena caused primarily by high oil prices and that oil prices are now coming down fast. Would you care to comment, sir? — R.C., Tampa, Fla.

Dear R.C.: There's a 92 percent degree of probability that the U.S. will not emerge from its economic malaise when a new president is given his key to the executive washroom next January. The fiscal profligacy of Congress, a too-old FED Chairman who was as overrated as the Edsel plus a White House too self-centered to care, might have created an economic crisis so compelling and demanding of our nation's resources the winning candidate might later wish he'd never sought the Oval Office.

To this fetid soup we must add the avarice of Wall Street's investment banks and mix in the corrupt money center banks, then stir in the venality of the mortgage industry and you have the perfect recipe for overweening greed. It spread like a virus, beginning in the nation's corporate boardrooms infecting our jobs, our home values, our mortgages and vacuumed the oxygen from our economy. It sucked savings from blue-collar workers, assets from the middle class, earnings from small business owners, while swelling the bank accounts of those who run Wall Street's investment banks, money center banks and Mortgage companies. And in the process, the pin-striped suits lost control, their consuming greed got out of hand creating personal suffering and losses that, for some, may never heal.

Real estate prices soared into the stratosphere because mortgage companies processed loans for anyone who could put a signature on an application. Prices got so high that demand declined, manufacturing began to slow, workers were laid off and home prices began to fall. But money center banks still competed to make home-equity loans, mortgage companies jiffied contractors so borrowers could afford monthly payments and Wall Street -nvestment banks collaterized this worthless paper selling it to investors who thought it was triple-A rated. Enormous profits were made and the pressure to "sell, buy, borrow and sell" was consuming.

But layoffs continued slowly, personal incomes fell and consumers lost their discretionary incomes. Home price began to collapse, home-equity loans were unprotected, small business began to suffer and cut payrolls, restaurants were the first to feel the cuts, retailers started to close; large manufacturing firms were hurting, forcing more payroll cuts. Then the consumer couldn't pay his debts, credit card companies were starting to hurt, banks had billions of troubled loans that they couldn't sell so they shut their credit windows and reduced payrolls.

Finally, large publicly traded companies began to report lower earnings, some reduced their dividends, others divested assets at bargain prices to obtain capital and the Dow Jones began its descent. Job losses continued. But our nation seemed to enjoy a modicum of prosperity because we were exporting goods and services to Europe and Asia in record numbers aided by a cheap dollar.

Well, guess what? The housing market in England is beginning to implode and the British economy may be on the brink of a recession. Spain is saddled with enormous high debt and inflation may soon wreak havoc. Germany's business sector is pessimistic and its outlook and its "Business Sentiment Index" fell for a third month in a row, causing great concern among members of its Bundestadt.

In France the unemployment rate exceeds 12 percent, its economy contracted by .03 percent and President Sarkozy has called for a series of special meetings with ministers. There's talk of a recession in Korea, the Chinese economy is finally slowing and Japan is wrestling with a worsening economy, dangerously high debt plus an aging population. And Eastern Europe is in the dithers too.

When the United States catches cold, the world economies seem to sneeze. Many observers suggest that we might be entering a global recession — a short one, I pray — that could run its course in three to four years. Well, that's a long time in my book and I suggest that it may take two years for our economy to turn — certainly not by the time a new president commands the Oval Office.

In the meantime, I ask you, who can afford and who will purchase our exports?

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, FL 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net. To find out more about Malcolm Berko and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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Column 515 9/04/08

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