Following up on earlier posts America is History and - the Meltdown.
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Back in the 60′s as a much younger man, I became a home-builder, and soon headed west to pursue that love in a more agreeable atmosphere. It grew nicely until the economy then hit a slump, which cycle repeated about every 7 years, but I didn’t understand why. The 3rd of such cycles came along, my business hit bottom again and, barely able to survive, I finally went to college and discovered a new love in economics. Of course we learned of Adam Smith, the supply demand curve, the Federal Reserve and another principle — ignoring Cause can bring only irrational treatment of Effect. Somewhere in those years, other factors of life came together for me, a foundation of consistency of philosophy which has integrated happily for this long remainder of life.
Which brings us to the latest & greatest calamity of the sub-prime mortgage, in which both the borrowers and the lenders are being blamed while at the same time being the victims! Therefore we watch the daily futile and insane attempts of our President and Congress to treat Effects with “meltdown bailout”, while studiously avoiding the Cause.
So here is what really happened — the Cause. Simply put, it was manipulation of our economy, loose money, then tight money, by The Fed with the virtually silent cooperation of Congress.
- The economy seems to be dragging, housing starts are down, soften the interest rates!
- Hmmm, needs a bit more kick in the pants, loosen loan standards!
- Ahhhhh, we got the housing market rolling really good now, arn’t we looking good!
- Oh Oh! The economy is overheating, there’s inflation signs, tighten up the money!
- Oh Oh! Interest rates are up, we gotta adjust those ARM’s!
Going back to my days in the building business, now we get the picture –It’s “The Seven Year Itch”! All caused by Congress and it’s pet playmate The Fed. But this round it has finally crossed the point of no return. The reason is not Wall Street, it is not deadbeat borrowers, it is not Golden Parachutes. The much ballyhooed “lack of confidence” is, again, Effect. Confidence without stability is impossible — cure the instability and confidence will reign. Too much borrowing, impossible national debt, for war, for socialism, for a hundred immoral efforts to deny the choice and liberty of the people. Months back, the “Bush Team” knew we were going to hit this crisis point; they drew up their horrid little plan to present when the stick got stuck too deep in the mud, so here we are. Tonight or Tomorrow the House will vote for the Senate’s latest plan and we will be screwed yet again.
Can you now understand why this long tiresome election campaign never made our economic collapse an issue? THEY caused it; they don’t know how to fix what they did, therefore let’s just ignore it and hope the problem goes away. Our MSM when right along with their game, when they should have been asking such questions. Then we have the first presidential debate, at which Jim Lehrer could so easily have asked “What caused this economic crisis, and how do you propose to fix it?”
pseudo-Libertarian Barr blew the golden opportunity to speak and make this case — 163 days before election day, but now is way too late. Ron Paul made good noises but isn’t a candidate, so now says merely “Vote 3rd Party”, when there are no candidates of ANY party, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, who can win and fix this mess after waiting too long.
I really do not believe that there is any viable solution available now, but let’s brainstorm on this. (added 3 Oct 08) Since the Fed caused this headache, why not dump it back upon the Fed to fix it? How? Just let them loan to the investment bankers whatever they need to unravel the credit crisis. The system is broken anyway, so what more harm could be done? Yes, it would be hugely inflationary, but any bailout will be inflationary anyway, so what else is new? Just maybe inflation will skyrocket enough to make the bad mortgage loans look good again? If not, hell, they caused it, now let them eat their own manure! The taxpayers didn’t do this, so why should we eat it?
The insanity of our government has mushroomed our national debt beyond hope of redemption. The effects of earlier bailouts, this bailout and inevitable future bailout attempts will serve only to further plunge our dollar toward hyperinflation and force America into collapse and a new dark age.
As individuals, we have only the option to courageously resist in all ways possible, and to attend to our survival as best we can. I initially built this morality101.net website in part to encourage you to go on tax strike, with some success, but the time for that to be highly effective has passed. We have lost the simple basic morality necessary to return. There can be no return until and unless we insist that our lives belong to no other.
