Posted by CotoBlogzz 03/23/2009 8:00 PM

In the Genesis account, Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile, when out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds. After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile and stood beside those on the riverbank. And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows.

Joseph, a young Hebrew, slave of the captain of the guard, is summoned to appear before Pharaoh and interpret the dream.  “The dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same. God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads of grain are seven years; it is one and the same dream. The seven lean, ugly cows that came up after they did are seven years, and so are the seven worthless heads of grain scorched by the east wind: They are seven years of famine.” Said the Hebrew slave, and proceeded to tell Pharaoh what had to be done:  “ Let Pharaoh appoint tax commissioners over the land to tax 25% of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance. This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country may not be ruined by the famine.”

However, trying to build the infrastructure to hold the 25% taxed harvest required leadership and engineering know-how not available then in the country.  In the end, Pharaoh put Joseph in charge, because of his great capacity for discernment.  When all Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. Then Pharaoh told all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph and do what he tells you.”

When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt.  And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.

In President’s Obama dream, the sleek and fat cows were born in China and other Asian nations during their own financial crisis in the 1990s , when these countries were living beyond their means.  After the crisis, the cows got fatter and fatter, as these countries focused on spurring exports, whiling keeping their exchange rates low.  The IMF for example, estimates that China’s surplus, which reflects net exports and capital invested abroad, grew to some $399 billion last year from $372 billion in 2007.

 

Clearly the gaunt and ugly cows are somewhere in Main Street USA. 

Just like in Pharaoh’s days, the way forward is not visible to mere mortals.  In fact, the way Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) sees it – and he knows more than a little about sound fiscal policy, since he was elected in 2005 to chair the Senate Budget Committee, he has been a proponent of spending restraint and lower taxes, and eventually said thanks but not thanks, as he chose not to accept the cabinet post of Commerce Secretary offered to him by President Obama:

“It is as if you were flying an airplane and the gas light came on and it said ‘you [have] 15 minutes of gas left’ and the pilot said ‘we’re not going to worry about that, we’re going to fly for another two hours.’ Well, the plane crashes and our country will crash and we’ll pass on to our kids a country that’s not affordable.”

The takeaway from the story, is that because as a country we were getting fatter, we thought we could spend our way out of any famine – but forgot about the gaunt and ugly cows.  To make matters worse, the administration is on a path to bankrupt the country.  Better start learning Chinese – it will come in handy!