ekzept

(right-click on image and open in a new tab to see full picture)

courtesy of CalculatedRisk, defying once again those who would say it's just a bad recession, despite vast evidence to the contrary. (John Authers comments, too. i like his "command economy" being the hope of the western world comment.) i find the attitude at many folks at CNBC annoying, both in the sense of blaming the entire thing on the government and upon continuing over government intervention. they and their sympathisers (see letter by Phil Gramm) are keeping the vast and immediate return of capital to people to spend from happening, something which Martin Wolf urged on CNN's "GPS" (with Fareed Zakaria) Sunday, the 1st.

still, the administration of President Barack Obama isn't helping, embroiled in politics. it's not hard to see why. failing to develop a bipartisan coalition to work the economy problem, Mr Obama has had to rely upon the Democrats and their new networks, primarily progressive and liberal. support comes with political price tags, namely, pushing the programs and agenda these folks want. he can't get what absolutely needs to be done through Congress without their support, and doing so alienates neoconservative Republicans more. Mr Obama needs to simply set politics aside, and use pure executive action. it's time. if he waits until there is public political will, it will be too late.

there's also a lot of bad information running around, people going on the opinion of so-called experts rather than learning on their own and figuring things out for themselves. without such knowledge many folks are simply suckers for bad logic and misplaced notions, like the idea that federal government debt is some how comparable to company debt, and the continuing failure of the major media to emphasize that Mr And Ms Private Sector We Know How To Run Things But Government Doesn't has wracked up a debt which dwarfs the government's debt, even after these recent expenditures and commitments. collective private debt runs into a few multiples of GDP.

i believe this is a Constitutional crisis as much as any other kind. if we mulishly fail to fix our immediate crisis or fail, next, to proceed and coordinate global to fix the global one (which is also our crisis), because of ignorance, political intransigence, failing to see how things really are and why we got here, it means we as a country have lost the ability to lead, decide, or even take care of ourselves. the world won't forget it, nor will we. there's a command economy out there which is not a democracy waiting to demonstrate it knows how to handle such things, even if in the long run that's not true.

we talk about the debt being an overhang on future generations, but what's the difference if there's a debt or not if, as a result of failing to spend because of insisting upon adherence to pure market principles, the economy destroys itself and no longer offers a quality of life or a reasonable tax base? as Martin Wolf said, we've known for quite some time that markets by themselves cannot assure stability. that means, as current numbers plainly show, they cannot assure growth either.