Ambassador Taylor's Podcast: Political Unity key ingredient to Financial Crisis Solution

Dobroho Dnya!

Good afternoon! Welcome back to the U.S. Embassy here in Kyiv, Ukraine. I'm very pleased to be able to join you again to tell you some of the things that we've been doing and some of the things we've been thinking about.

The first item is actually very good news and that is that our Presidential Election is now over. Our Presidential Election lasted for about two years, starting with many candidates who were then narrowed down to the final two and then earlier this month on the fourth of November we decided and we chose Barrack Obama as our next President. So we're very excited about this choice. Americans all over the world, whether they voted for Obama or McCain, we are now very excited about our future. We are proud that with these elections we have told the world that any American child, any American boy or girl could grow up to be the President of the United States. Doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, black or white. If you are American, you can grow up to be the President of the United States. This is a major accomplishment in our country and we are very proud and excited about this.

President Obama will have a difficult time. President Obama is facing a series of challenges. President Obama is assembling a team. He knows much about the rest of the world. Much of his youth he spent abroad, so he understands what life is like in the rest of the world, not just in the United States. I think this will be strength for President Obama. He also has been to Ukraine, so he knows this country; he's been watching Ukraine and its development for the time on the committee in the Senate, where he served. When he came here with Senator Lugar in 2005, he met many of the leaders of this country and he stays in touch with them. He has people on his staff who used to serve as U.S. Ambassadors to Ukraine, so President Obama will have a focus on foreign policy as well as domestic policy and in that foreign policy plan will be strong relations with Ukraine will be very important.

I mentioned that President Obama will have big challenges. That is the next thing I would like to talk about. That is the world economic crisis. It is a crisis that is affecting all countries in the world. It started in the United States where many people who had mortgages, who had loans to pay for their houses, turned out they couldn't pay for these loans. They couldn't keep current on their loan payments. This escalated to the extent where people lost confidence in the banking system and that loss of confidence required our government to take extraordinary measures that we hadn't taken sine the great depression in the last century. These measures took a big step by our Congress, in form of 7 billion dollars that formed the anti-crisis bill that was passed with bi-partisan support from both Republicans and Democrats, support from Senator McCain and Senator Obama. They all came together to pass this difficult bill, this large bill that we hope will restore confidence in the banking system, which in turn will restore confidence in the financial system, which in turn will restore confidence in the world economic system. This is important. As the world recognizes that these crises pass, these crises go through, then the world will begin to recover and that will help in Ukraine, Europe, and Asia. This crisis came suddenly, and is being addressed now and will eventually be solved as people recognize the difficulties and move through them.

All countries are going to have to deal with this problem. Some countries have their political structure set in such way that they can deal with the crisis directly. Ukraine has a political crisis going on and at the same time it has a financial crisis. This is making it more difficult for Ukraine to deal with this world economic and financial crisis. Now is the time for Ukrainian leaders including the President, the Prime Minister, and Rada to come together to deal with this problem. The world is trying to help solve this problem as well. The world financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund who is providing 16.4 billion dollars in loans to Ukraine and other countries around the world. So people are working together, governments are working together. Now is the time for unity for international organizations and unity in Ukraine as well.

The last thing I will mention is a Holiday that Americans will celebrate this week - Thanksgiving. It goes back hundreds of years. It's a time when we celebrate the harvest, and when families get together and think about the past, the present and the future. They give thanks for things they've got; their health, their work, and their family life together. Sot at this time of our holiday of Thanksgiving, I wish the best for Ukraine, for its health and prosperity, and look forward to talking to you again next month. Thank you.