Smoke & Mirrors, the Series

I've been delaying making this post....because I find the subject distasteful. Predictable to the point of nausea, but....distasteful. The present state of our economic affairs is undoubtedly due to some important factors, deeply rooted in our national character, and other factors will assuredly pull us out....given time.

But time is what we may no longer have. The turnaround between general news coverage of anything perceived as serious and a felt need among the mental pygmies in government to do something -anything- is now well under 24 hours. In the two months since the inauguration we have already seen one reflexive hurling of over $700B at the economy.....but whether the disbursement of this money will actually have the desired effect of stimulating the economy is at least dubious. It could hardly be otherwise, given the time frame of a month and change in which this was put together, passed by Congress, and signed by the President. If this had been done in another venue, someone less charitable than I might describe it as "panicky."

Now, while those in charge of our affairs wait and sweat out the results of their move, they propose a monster budget and engage in relentless scapegoating of anyone and everyone in the previous administration, with no evidence to support their allegations other than "they were there at the time."

The serial scapegoating continues into the private sector, as the heads of faltering corporations are hauled in and castigated by the sleazemasters Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, as if the likes of the CEO of AIG is somehow more to blame for the current situation than those same gentlemen who were instrumental in loosening up the lending strings at Fannie & Freddie that helped precipiate the mortgage collapse that precipitated the current recession. At every turn, they propose dangerous and even unconstitutional measures in the name of "making the people whole." This includes the violation of perfectly legal contracts and ex post fact tax laws to confiscate bonuses called into question. Isn't this the definition of demagogues? More important, is anyone noticing?

All this to avoid confronting the core issue that if we don't change things (as I recall, "Change" was supposed to be the theme of the current administration) at a fundamental level, this will happpen all over again. In 1929, it may have been margin buying of stocks that preciptated the Great Depression, but it was a list of other factors and problems, all left unaddressed, that interacted to produce the Depression itself. Our current situation has a lot to do with the way we choose to live. The constantly advertised and paraded string of things everyone "deserves" or is "entitled to," from a certain standard of living through a guaranteed pension and universal unlimited government-provided health care. The relentless materialism, the depressing consumerism, the push to live on credit which continues cheek by jowl with the panicky hair-tearing over "the worst recession ever."

Either these things change, or we'll just pull out of this recession to do it all over again. And, at long last, I'm beginning to find it tiresome. As a newspaper editor said back in the golden days before the Great Depression, "I'm out of sorts with America."