Up for Debate

In Portland, the presidential debates, and for that matter the sole vice-presidential debate, has been one hot ticket. Because I can only speak for this area, my assumption is purely that that debates are hot items just about everywhere, which is keeping in tune with the election. Although I have only lived through less than ten Presidential elections, and have been able to vote in only four, it is hard to remember there being this much buzz about the election. People really, really care, which is a good thing, I suppose.
Problem is, I can't help but feel like our country is deeply, and I mean deeply divided. So divided in fact, that I can't picture either of the candidates being able to bridge the gap. You have one side just dying for change, and another doing everything possible to retain control. I am wholly in the camp of the former as opposed to the latter, not being able to understand why anybody would think our country is not due a major change in direction. But then again, I suspect a lot of that has to do with what a person attributes the economic (and to some social) chaos to. For some people I know, it has almost nothing to do with politics, or who is in the White House or who controls the Senate and House. I don't personally buy that, and never have. I really believe that the powers that be have everything to do with the general health of a nation.
What I believe, however, is purely up for debate, the debate tonight proved that. The economic crisis in this country, the bailout, are attributed to one side by lack of regulation, while another says regulation is to blame. I know which theory I believe, but chances are when election time rolls around, nearly half the country will vote for the side that is opposite.
All of it is very interesting, because no matter what, you can tell the respective sides believe without doubt their own theories, and nothing will ever change that. This brings me to my ultimate point, which is that events can happen, and there will be millions of interpretations of why those events happened, and more importantly, what went wrong. Our own portfolio has begun to feel the effects of the national recession. That could be attributed to faulty leadership, as the portfolio is overseen by the investment committee, and the investment committee is Council, and we were more concerned with censorship, and derailing an enrollment election, and other things. Conversely, there might not have been anything we could have done. The situation is that complex, like the national economy, and there is no single factor or event, a committee sheet here, a vote there, that would have made that big of a difference. Or was there?
Whenever I look back on Strategic Wealth, I wonder those two words that writer Salman Rushdie calls paired together the most worthless words in the English language, "What if?" What if things had been done differently back then? We'll never know, but much like the national economy, it makes for some interesting debates.