Dear President Obama,

I am an 18-year-old college student at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and I would like a few minutes of your time. The issues you face today are monstrous and you have the incredible responsibility of carrying and maintaining the world’s economic state on your shoulders. While I inherently disagree with the very existence of this responsibility on any one man (as I completely disagree with globalization and the imperialistic endeavors of the United States), I would like to at least encourage you to use your responsibility wisely.

As I’m sure you’re tired of hearing, one of the biggest threats currently facing the United States economy is the debt. President Obama, I want you to take a stand. My future hinges greatly upon which way you will swing the door. This debt was created through years of deregulated mismanagement and corruption on Wall Street and within the banks of America, with whom the federal government continues to have strong ties.  

Your office was born into an era of economic meltdown, a time in which unemployment and foreclosures skyrocketed. And somehow, you were able to evade a complete disaster. Since this time, the economy has somewhat stabilized, but the institutions that led us to meltdown in the first place are still in power and still maintain close ties with the offices in the Washington D.C. This is no solution. Another economic disaster is waiting for us if we continue on this same path.

Author of Living in the End Times, Slavoj Zizek wrote, “We are now entering a period in which a kind of economic state of emergency is becoming permanent, turning into a constant, a way of life. It brings with it the threat of far more savage austerity measures, cuts in benefits, diminishing health and education services and more precarious employment. The left faces the difficult task of emphasizing that we are dealing with political economy –that there is nothing ‘natural’ in such a crisis, that the existing global economic system relies on a series of political decisions.”

President Obama, I beg of you to realize how wisely you must hold this responsibility. You need to take a stand against corruption in the financial system today. If the economy really relies on a series of political decisions, then your role in a new future for America is integral. You must realize and proclaim that this world does not fall and rise at the hands of profit. As Charles Eisenstein writes for Adbusters, “’I wasn’t put here on Earth to sell product.’ ‘I wasn’t put here on Earth to increase market share.’ I wasn’t put here on Earth to make numbers grow.’ We protest not only our exclusion from the American Dream; we protest its bleakness. If it cannot include everyone on Earth, every ecosystem and bioregion, every people and culture in its richness; if the wealth of one must be the debt of another; if it entails sweatshops and underclasses and fracking and all the rest of the ugliness our system has created, then we want none of it.”

President Obama, we need a new dream. The world cannot sustain another economic crisis of the likes of before, literally. This new economy needs to be built for the people and the environment. This new economy needs to be a collective effort. You have the power to make a major change in the way people view economics in this country.  No more empty promises and false hope. Appoint people to office who have the interests of the environment and the people in mind over profit. This will change the face of the economic system and will be what brings prosperity to the planet, to society, to the economy, and to finance. We cannot make the same mistakes and follow the same systems as before.

 As a child of the younger generation, who will reap the effects of your decisions now for the rest of my life, I ask you to take your responsibility as my President and use it for good. No more deception and no more profit-driven decisions. Put Wall Street and the banks into their rightful positions and make mindful decisions about the future of this country.

Sincerely,

Erin Bridges