Indications are that a majority of Americans still oppose anything like a bailout for financial institutions. An unscientific CNN poll today has 59% answering "let risk-taking financial institutions fail." A Time Magazine article says much the same thing.
I think many people underestimate the risk of doing nothing. I think the smug, Reagan era idea that Government is essentially bad, can't fix anything and can only make things worse, plays a role and I think it's only human nature to distrust a plan drafted by the people who not only told us only days ago that it was foolish to think ( or to whine ) that we are experiencing recession; the people who have been preaching deregulation and advocating "anything goes" markets for decades, the people who refer only to dogma and ignore reality.
I have to admit that a part of me wishes it would all fall down and plunge us into depression simply to punish the slight majority who have been mocking reality and the people who recognize it, and mocking anything to do with government participation in anything but warfare. Of course I know that even bread lines and 30% unemployment wouldn't change such minds; they would simply blame it on Liberals with the same instinct that causes a land crab to run for the darkest place when you're trying to chase it out of your garage. Conservatives blamed the Great Depression on lazy shiftless workers. Not much has changed.
So seeing the intransigent stupidity and self-delusion of America, I have to believe we're in need of some kind of rescue; some kind of government intervention. Judging from events elsewhere however, I think the Post-bailout America would be only marginally different from the post "let them fail" America and either way, we're in for 5 years to a decade of high unemployment, inflation and increased marginalization of our position in the world. We're in for a long period of blaming, scapegoating and scurrilous propagandizing. Faced with a stalemate in Iraq, a rapidly declining position in Afghanistan and a Pakistan that cannot control its borders or prevent itself from being a haven for al Qaeda, it's hard to be optimistic no matter what is done, who wins the presidential election or which party controls the Congress.
I would like to believe that we will eventually see a leaner, more fiscally fit and saner America, but I don't believe in our ability to learn from mistakes, to recognize that we have made them or to see beyond the rhetoric and dogma and slogans when looking for solutions. Instead, I see more excuses for cute and perky incompetence, more praise of folly and more of our eternal hunger for fast food, fast solutions and the comfort of false certainty.
America - I wish to hell I could quit you.
Cross posted from Human Voices
Gee whiz, Captain. If I understand you correctly, there are only two grim options: (1) business-as-usual-stupid or (2) doomsday-stupid. The business-as-usual-stupid will stay stupid because, unless they are undergoing excruciating pain, there is no motivation to change. Shall we call this a Stupidity of Perpetual Complacency? On the other hand, the doomsday-stupid will stay stupid because they cling stubbornly to a kind of Steady State Stupidity. Thus, if I understand you correctly, there are no merciful options unless …
ReplyDeleteOur sun decides to go supernova, but I understand even this decision will be delayed for a few billion years.
I'm sure there are solutions, I just don't see this as a country that will, as the old saw goes, choose them until all other options are exhausted. Even intelligent people are having difficulty with this -- some have to admit the deregulation religion was wrong, some are just angry that nobody listened to them for 20 years when they were right and now they're being blamed anyway. It's hard for me to support it because it may cost me money, at least in the short term.
ReplyDeleteI fully understand the reluctance to support a bailout when the people to blame for the problem will not at least be pilloried, but as usual, the passions of the multitudes prevent making hard choices.
Fortunately the sun is well below the Chandrasekhar limit. I'm not worried about supernovas.
Tom “Flathead” Friedman is not my favorite pundit but here is what he said yesterday:
ReplyDeleteOur government is so broken that it can only work in response to a huge crisis. But now we’ve had a huge crisis, and the system still doesn’t seem to work. Our leaders, Republicans and Democrats, have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this system-threatening meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package, as if they lived on Mars and were just visiting us for the week, with no stake in the outcome.
I would tend to agree but every day I get one of these, either by e-mail or snail-mail:
Introducing a new card from Bank of America, where you earn rewards 25% faster … You can redeem your points for travel, merchandise, cash, and more … [and the fine print says this:] These transactions are subject to a 3% transaction fee, no less than $10.
In other words, a credit card offer during a credit crunch. Sure, why not! Nothing like new debt tossed on top of the trash heap of old debt. It is not just Wall Street, nor banks, nor politicos, but low-information consumers and voters who buy into this stuff like Pavlov’s dogs who salivate obediently on command. In other words, pandemic! At least a supernova would be a hot bargain … no terms, no payments.
If you ever have the need to throw up, watch Maxed Out
ReplyDeleteDead people get offers of credit cards. People who committed suicide because of massive debt get offers in the mail.
People are borrowing money at 99.25%
Remember that ferret-faced guy from Ditech who advise us to borrow 125% of our house's value to "jump on a hot stock?"
Better to have jumped out a window.