SOUNDING OFF:

The U.S. a banana republic?

No way! We’re not in Central America, we’re too big, we’re....

But consider the following characteristics of the so-called banana republic, as pulled from the Wikipedia encyclopedia, and notice how uncomfortably close to home some of them strike:

 A small country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture (e.g., bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy and corrupt clique;

 It is most commonly used for countries in Central America such as El Salvador, Belize, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala;

 A banana republic also typically has large wealth inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a “backward” economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits and a weakening currency;

 In modern usage the term has come to be used to describe a generally unstable or “backward” dictatorial regime, especially one where elections are often fraudulent and corruption is rife;

 By extension, the word is occasionally applied to governments where a strong leader hands out appointments and advantages to friends and supporters, without much consideration for the law;

 A banana republic can also be used to describe a country where a large part of its economy and politics are controlled by foreign powers or even corporations.

A dyspeptic scoring of present-day America against these criteria yields 17 agreements out of 23 — about 74% correlation — showing that, at least recently, the U.S. has a startling number of similarities to its Central American neighbors.

I suppose Chuck Cassity will try to “prove” with cherry-picked facts the Democrats caused it, as he tried to do in his commentary on the latest U.S. debacle (“Who’s really to blame for so-called Bush Bailout?” Oct. 1). But regardless of whodunit, viewing our own republic through banana-tinted glasses might just provide a useful perspective as we debate the financial “crisis” and all the other issues of this election season.

TOM EGAN lives in Costa Mesa.