Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret_Agent_Man
This point applies to almost any policy question. In the end, its impossible to save anyone from themselves. The goal, which is really hard, is to help people and communities to save themselves.
[This trenchant analysis brought to you by several good-quality high-test beers.]
S_A_M
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This will lead you to the same conclusion it has every other professional and armchair philosopher in history: Let it collapse, leave the damage to wipe out the weak and hit restart when the dust settles.
Darwinism. All perceived end runs around it are mere delays of the inevitable. See also: Schumpeter. Schools, housing, the economy, SS, Medicare... we're not fixing any of it. We're just giving the appearance of a fix, which allows a series of soft landings, and allows for the divergence between classes in this country to occur slowly, insidiously, in a manner few of us will notice.
And this I know first hand. I doubt many of you see small businesses and debtors up close on a regular basis. The disconnect between our world and the lower middle class America is fucking staggering. I have hated Bob Herbert of the NYTimes for years because he's fucking bleeding heart liberal, but man-- I have to tell you, the shit he's saying in his recent columns about how we're turning into a 3d World nation for nearly 100 million of our inhabitants is dead spot-on. None of this shit is curable.
1. The muni bond crisis? Coming. I buy Whitney in full, and think the street's argument local govts will be barred from default by covenants requiring them to pay bonds first is hysterically, and historically, naive. And no, I don't think the Fed will do a QE with muni bonds to save them. Politically and practically that's a disaster. Bail one, bail all.
2. Student loan defaults. Right now, the govt isn't counting loans in deferrment as non-performing. Students get anywhere from 24-48 months of deferrment. Tick, tick, tick...
3. Housing's going down another 5-10%.
4. Comm r/e. What's the #1 driver behind those 100 or so local TARP banks nearing failure? Yep. Comm r/e.
5. Fuel prices. No need for explanation. (And worse, this time around, the whole world won't pull back on fuel consumption when our economy swoons. There's enough foreign demand to keep gas prices high even as we falter.)
6. Unemployment's going nowhere.
Hard-ons like Kudlow and the rest of the douchebag contingent of "Yay! Retail shows we're back!" pundits are a bad comedy show. Everything's on KMart blu-light special these days and retailers have no hope of raising any time soon. Holiday spending means jack. Aberration... insanity... the last gasp of a consumer culture desperate to feel like it used to (or armed with new found $$$ it used to spend on the mortgage).
We're still fucked. Cosmically, long term, "structural-change" fucked. The only thing that's changed is the spin.
