Communication Breakdown

No one will disagree that the United States economy is in crisis. However, no one can seem to agree on a solution. Last week, Congress was battling to get a bailout bill through. Monday, after everyone expected it to pass...it didn't.

Members who voted the bill down sited the outrage they heard from their constituents. The cry on Capitol Hill that day was, "How can we bail out Wall Street when Main Street suffers?!" However, when the bill failed the question was, "No what are we going to do?" There was panic. We were dealing with the unknown, and our markets do not function well under those circumstances.

So how did a big mess become even bigger? There was a communication break down. All the public heard about the bill was that it would cost the people $700 billion. There were very few particulars beyond that. Without any other information to go on, the public thought the worst, and expressed their outrage. This was a huge public relations flub. If anyone, whether it be the Bush administration or Congress wanted to get this deal through, they needed to sell it. They failed to do this.

As a nation, we find ourselves asking the collective question, "How did we find ourselves in this position?" We now know the answer: Poor salesmanship.