By Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com

As one who has been around the block a few dozen times, I’ve seen our country weather many things.  Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, Desert Storm, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and certainly others that have both united and divided us.  In every case however, individually and collectively, we made it through.  No matter how dire the circumstances, there was always a light.  Dim or nearly burned out, we found the glow and moved forward as a nation.

Apparently, depending upon who you listen to, that will not be the case with the current economic predicament we now find ourselves in.

You can’t turn on local or national news without hearing various financial experts speak about the economy as though our world is about to end.

One analyst after another is trotted out on FOX, CNN and MSNBC like contestants in a beauty pageant on The Twilight Zone not only to stoke the fires of fear, but to throw on a few thousand gallons of jet fuel. 

And everyone has a plan.  But with every plan, there’s yet another grim analyst in a suit or dress ready to let the world know that plan won’t work.  And then they trot out their own plan . . . which is immediately shot down by the next tribe member on Survivor: Global Economy.

Has this country gone stupid in less than a month?

Yes, the economy has gone south but at last check, we’ve not had a complete collapse.  At least not yet, and there’s the rub.

Barack Obama says he knows how to fix it.  John McCain says he knows how to fix it.  And then there’s the conga line of senators, members of the House, governors, mayors, advisors, strategists, bankers, brokers, bakers and candlestick makers who all have yet another plan.

Is there anyone out there that can go on television and tell us, with even a modicum of confidence and intelligence, that we will figure this thing out?  That America always figures out significant problems.  That gloom and doom, the sky is falling attitudes are for the French and that we’ll have none of that here, in the greatest country on earth.

And we still are the greatest country on earth.  Oh sure, we have our problems.  And we don’t always do things in a way that inspires confidence from our friends around the world.  But at the end of the day we still “get it” better than any other nation you can name.

So why is it with the current economic plight we find ourselves in, no one seems able to step forward and offer up a plan with a little fire and a lot of vigor?  It seems The Folks Who Know Finance are more caught up in whining about how bad things are, how bad things are going to get and how the world as we know it will never be the same.

After Pearl Harbor, these would have been the people saying “Well Mr. President, time to learn Japanese.”

I’m not in government and I’m not a business leader.  I don’t have the financial wherewithal to offer up my own plan.  And even if I did, who would listen?  The one thing I understand is not giving up.  Approaching the most difficult of situations from a position of “one way or another, we’ll get this thing fixed.”

Instead, we get feted with a nightly procession of prognosticating zombies who seem bent on bringing us to the dark side and being even more miserable.

I will welcome the moment that someone, anyone, steps to the plate with a big stick, points their bat to the outfield and hits one out of the park. 

Until then, we’re left with an assemblage of geniuses who are expert at ripping down every other plan they hear while doing precious little to add anything relevant.

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