The US dilemma - a choice between two little-liked candidates

ON Nov 8, the US presidential election will take place. The incumbent - Barack Obama - has been a low-key but amazingly influential leader. We forget that he was elected into the biggest financial crisis in history, directly caused by greed on the part of bankers, but aided and abetted by his Democrat forebears - Bill Clinton (someone's husband) in particular.

Two terms later, the US has weathered that crisis and there have been great strides in domestic social justice - healthcare and racial inequality in particular. The US has extricated itself from debilitating interventions in the Middle East and Africa, but at some cost to future foreign relations. Indeed, the major international criticism of his presidency will be the failure to intervene in Syria and the awful images of the result of their inactivity there and elsewhere.

Now he has to be followed by someone else. The US has a real dilemma - the choice between two people whom nobody really wants. The third candidate ruled himself out with one of the most embarrassing faux pas in US political history - "What's Aleppo?". I assume he is lying in a darkened room.

When it seemed obvious that Hillary Clinton would win the nomination for her party, many people outside the US were dismayed. A venal person, as the various leaks have illustrated, with a history of failure, notably in foreign relations. We can forgive the venality, because we know what politicians are like and we don't have to live there or vote. But we should not forget the manoeuvres she made in the decisions regarding the Middle East and Africa. Plus the fact that she is married to a notorious philanderer whose mistaken policies on banking (Glass-Steagall) and then on social housing gifted financial institutions the means to almost bankrupt the world. What really sticks in the craw is that she and her husband have profited enormously from their positions. Jealousy? Of course, but I sleep reasonably well at night - does Tony Blair?

So, not Mrs Clinton, thanks (we are only interested in this because the US has such influence in the world). Step up the alternative - Donald Trump, ex-bankrupt but now property mogul, known mostly for a reality TV programme (now there is a comment on the modern world). Brash, uneducated in the world outside the US, with an enormous appeal to the white underprivileged populations of Middle America, who may yet prove a majority in the election. And mega rich - probably as much as the Clintons. He may be a serial groper, but then the opposition would not want to run this too far.

As I write this, I feel an awful sense of depression. Is this the best that mankind can do, in the richest place on earth? Well, that is a misnomer - the US may have enormous assets as calculated by accountants, but it also has extreme poverty with rudimentary social care systems. It also has the world's largest debt by far (but not by head of population - that accolade goes to Luxembourg, but only down to its banking system). The US economy is propped up by countries buying its bonds - if they stopped doing this, we should all crawl into shelters and start bartering pigs for potatoes. Japan used to do this (buy the bonds, not barter pigs), now it is China, and we are all locked in to the system. As an aside, have you ever looked at the world's debt? Everybody is in debt, even China. Again, as an accountant, I was taught that every debit had a credit - so who owns all those trillions? I am awaiting an email from Liberia telling me that I own it, if I let them know my bank details.

Monday was Halloween, a commercial occasion based on history and usurped by Americans - another comment on modern life. Don't get me started on social media, though I'm thinking it might be the best way to greet people at Christmas (irreligious, of course). The world is a scary place, with Russian fleets going to Syria and who knows who is being elected in the most powerful place on earth.

At least, in the UK, we only have to worry about leaving the EU and who is going to be crowned the country's best baker.

As an aside, given recent events (if you have noticed), better dump the euro in favour of sterling - just ask Nissan.