No 3674 Set by Barbara Daniels

During the presidential elections, George W Bush revealed how "more and more [American] imports come from abroad". We asked for a speech by the president in which he reveals his grasp of the global economy.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Too easy! But jolly funny, all the same. Hon menshes to D A Prince ("We've got to put the American people first and that means getting a hold of some of this abroad money, so that we can change it into fast bucks"), Will Bellenger ("A country as big as Belgium can lose right out to some place like Chad, where they have sunlight right round the clock, and they work in shifts") and G J Merrill ("Don't worry about the trade deficit. If it grows too large, we will export all our imports"). The winners get £20; the vouchers go to J Seery.

My great predecessor Calvin Coolidge said that when a lot of people are unable to find work, unemployment results. That was true then, but things have changed. We've cured that. Now unemployment causes lots of people to be unable to find work. Those countries that are not exporting enough should do what I have told American exporters to do. Go to Germany. Buy their Renault cars. Sell them to the Germans. That's enterprise. They say deflation is when too many goods are chasing too little money. My policy is to bring things into balance. Set fire to some of the goods. American tourists bring in a lot of imports. That's unpatriotic. Go abroad. Buy your gifts. Forget to pack them. Other countries put up tariff barriers against us. Fine! We'll increase our invisible exports. If their customs men can't see them, they can't stop them. That's the American way. Don't trust economists. One said to me last week: "Mr President, what are your views on canes and marks?" I said - and you have just got to pretend to take these guys seriously - "Hit schoolkids but not badly enough to leave bruises." Another asked: "What is the administration's policy on excessive capital movements?" I said: "Washington DC stays where it's always been. Here." God bless America.

J Seery

In our era, the global economy has become a truly worldwide phenomenon. Multinational organizations are no longer confined to one country alone. A tiny fall on the New York exchange can cause a mighty crash in London, Tokyo or Hang Seng. The smart guys at Harvard call this chaos theory. Now, to me that's way too negative. It suggests we don't know what the hell we're doing. I prefer the term "invisible order theory". The thing is, we've given the world an economic system that works, even if we don't know how it works. I call that a triumph for American know-how. People talk to me about cancelling Third World debt. But my Dad taught me, you pay what you owe. So let's call the debts in, every last dime. It's not about greed, it's about fairness. The money itself isn't important: we'll donate it to charity. Famine relief, whatever. Because we are a caring administration, and this is a caring economy. But it cares in an invisible way.

Peter Norman

The next thing I want to talk about in this Fireside Chat is the worry some folk have about this thing called globalization. What you've got to remember is that "globalize" is only a word. Like "tenderize", for instance.

To tenderize is to make a steak fit to eat. So to globalize is to make a business fit to go round the globe, and how can that be bad? That's what we want, isn't it, to be able to do business anywhere in the world?

Another idea that causes anxiety is that some big international companies have bigger annual incomes than some of those smaller nations, such as Nepal or maybe Zambia. But you don't have to worry about that because America is a big nation. We'll never be in a position where we can be outdone by one of those international companies the way we might be if we were Guacamole . . . I think I might have misread that.

It's true that globalization gets done by the big international outfits. But those outfits are run by men - and women, too - who were trained right here at Harvard Business School or MIT. So my message to you, my fellow Americans, is that you can sleep easy in your beds because globalization is in the hands of friends. God bless America.

Jean Bowden

The world sure is a big place - and it's getter smaller all the time. So America is scrapping all Free Trade Agreements - we can't afford to give American produce away. We in the Western World, Texas and California, need to realise that economic life goes on only to death, and beyond. When a butterfly beats its wings in Tokyo, it flies. Let me simplify that, my fellow Americans: the A-rabs may have all of the oil, but we have some, too, and when we go into recession we won't have as much as we think we used to.

The planet is big enough for all of us today, but who can say about tomorrow? We need strong relationships with weaker nations - I asked Tony Blair: "Do you know why America's going into recession?" and he said: "It's the economy, stupid." China is part of the unsolvable problem that we aim to crack. There's one hell of a lot'a people there, and they are all Chinese. That's a lot'a burger sales.

I know y'all be real close by me in future when I'm not here, building a new America in the "global world", as soon as the next space mission discovers it. God bless America.

Robert Marshall

No 3677 Set by George Cowley

Richard J Evans referred recently in the NS to these times being "the post-literate age". Could we have a suitable piece of prose about this very age? Max 200 words and in by 26 April.

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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