Across the pond

Tomorrow, which is almost here in UK, there will be eight days to go before the US election. The latest polls suggest that Obama will win comfortably. And John McCain’s camp are already starting to blame each other. They are thinking in terms of how to preserve their own careers by blaming the impending defeat on someone else.

The Murdoch press is not shouting for McCain, but they are running stories about the danger of a world we have not seen since 1932, when a Democratic President may come to power, with a majority in both houses of Congress, making it far easier for him to get his proprosals into law.

So the Murdoch press is not saying Obama is bad news. But they are warning their readers that, come November 4, the Democrats are likely, not only to have the White House, but they will also have comfortable majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. So they are telling their readers not to give him, and the Democrats, too big a majority.

Depending on which Murdoch paper you read, this is a threat of America being taken over by a lefty lot or by a liberal lot.

Despite his conversion to the born again Christian beliefs, Murdoch retains his pragmatism and his ability to see where his profits are coming from.

So the message from Rupert is not vote McCain. It is now,  don’t give Obama and the Democrats too big a majority.

Because, although Murdoch is no lover of banks, who were not very nice to him, when he was struggling to stave off bankruptscy, he realises that he cannot go on making his millions, if the banks collapse.

A lot can happen in eight days. And the issues which face US electors on polling day may not be those we are thinking about today.

But what is absolutely certain is that the worries about the banking crisis will not be resolved before November 4. It is not such a surprise that Gordon Brown, with his roots in Old Labour has nationalised the banks. But the fact, that George W Bush, the disciple of Thatcher and the believer that God not only rewards the faithful in the hereafter, but makes them rich on earth, has been forced to do the same.

The world is indeed very different, from what it was a few weeks ago. And it is comforting that Bush and Brown and the European Community, are reacting with the knowledge of what happened in 1929 and how John Maynard Keynes and Franklin D Roosevelt steered America and the world out of the depression.

But what we are facing today, although quite as serious as the Great Depression, is not just the same. It needs a different approach.

Which will be the subject of a later blog.

But meanwhile, if you are American, vote Obama and vote Democrat. Because neither McCain, nor the Repbublican Party has the frameworks of thinking that enable them to begin to think out the solutions.

Because those solutions violate their honestly held beliefs in their own doctrines.