Probly best not to read the article embedded below – provided by Rex, natch – with any sharp implement, bottle of sleeping pills, open upper floor window, etc., within easy reach. Here’s a peek ahead to the thrilling climax:
When a nation practices evil, there is no way that it is going to be blessed in the long run. The truth is that we have become a nation that is dripping with corruption and wickedness from the top to the bottom. Unless this fundamentally changes, not even the most perfect economic policies in the world are going to do us any good. In the end, you always reap what you sow. The day of reckoning for the U.S. economy is here and it is not going to be pleasant.
I found the tone of the above too fire-and-brimstone-y, especially considering how straightforward the rest of the article is. Of course, if the author is more than half right, some old time religion might be all a lot of people will have to depend on. Still, if things are so impendingly radically awful, then certain alternatives also come within closer reach, making it even more worth our collective while to take fuller account of our options: “Courage discovers the resources of a desperate situation.”
Meanwhile, the idea that we have been conspicuous practitioners of “evil,” “dripping with corruption and wickedness from the top to the bottom” is more than a bit much. Compared to whom? If we have to wait around for general goodness to overwhelm all our lives before we’re allowed to overcome the obstacles before us, then ain’t no point in trying, cuz we’re cooked. Might as well construct about 150 million whipping posts, and prepare to take turns…
Comments 15
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
This proves nothing except the need for a good war to put all those out of work people and depressed industries back to work. We should deal with the Canada and Mexico border problems once and for all. The Arctic Ocean and Darien Gap are the natural borders of this country.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Sully wrote:
I’d vote for the Oort Cloud, pending certain technological advances (that I’m confident are on the way).
February 6th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
My northerly notion was to stop at the ocean,
To south I would snap up what’s north of the gap,
But some are so needy and for territory greedy,
That they cry out aloud they want the Oort Cloud.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Sarah is already Queen of Outer Space, succeeding Eva Gabor. Oh the humanity!
February 6th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
And why stop at the Darien Gap?
If the US of A did already extend that far south, there’d be a drivable motorway through it today, and the old Route 66 series would have been about a long, long highway that started in Yukon Territory and ended on the windswept shores of Tierra del Fuego.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
Practicality. We no longer have the national self confidence to fence and patrol thousand mile borders in recognition of a distinction between our fellow citizens and others. I’m hopeful we still have the self confidence to fence and patrol a 50 mile border. Doubtful; but hopeful. Perhaps with a significant infusion of unspoiled Mexican and Central American citizens we can totter along for another couple hundred years.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
I just re-read First Man of Rome. Ponderous but interesting. We need a Gaius Marius; but what we have are a bunch of Metellus Piggle Wiggles.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
I think Rex deserves a semi- unfrivolous response so I will say that if it takes a semi-permanent collapse in our standard of living to render us competitive again, well, that’s what it will take. The big question is whether there are enough Sarah Palins around to avert our political-cultural Haitianization. Today I would say unquestionably yes, but a couple of generations of really comatose activity might Zombify my optimism.
February 7th, 2010 at 7:08 am
@ Seth Halpern:
It’s been a while; but if I properly remember my Maslow and his need heirarchy we will never be as hungry as in the past and it’s only natural that the rate of per capita economic growth should slow.
Also, re Rex, none but the most ardent catastrophists are talking about descent into some sort of dark ages. Japan has not reverted to savagery and luddite mobs destroying the grain mills, it stagnated for a couple of decades at a general standard. That’s bad enough; but it’s not Haitianization or North Koreanization. Even the Soviets didn’t achieve Haitianization, try though they did over eighty years.
February 7th, 2010 at 7:50 am
“I found the tone of the above too fire-and-brimstone-y, especially considering how straightforward the rest of the article is.”
The fire and Brimstone section is irrelevant. What is most important is #19. JEM & CK,if you can’t put 2&2 together after seeing a stable money supply from 1916-1970,then came 1971,and look what happened. This isn’t theory,this is fact,then start looking at the results of the expansion of the money supply,the other economic distortions ennumerated,if you have another factual explanation that the expansion of the money supply began at the same time as the disavowal of the gold system (Bretton Woods) in 1971,please share.
Also,for you Zombie NeoCons,please explain the how the concept of American Exceptionalism merges with our economic track record of the past four decades,and how does a bankrupt Superpower remain exceptionalist? Exceptionalism is expensive.
http://www.businessinsider.com/20-reasons-why-the-us-economy-is-dying-and-is-simply-not-going-to-recover-2010-2#reckless-inflation-19
February 7th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
I think the point is that the Faustian bargain of progressive liberalism – which has reigned supreme in the US since WW2 at the latest, in both parties – required a different mode of financing than allowed by the gold or any other standard. Going off gold completely vs. putting the national economy on a mega-credit card is a chicken and egg question. Fiat money is equally symptom and cause, in that sense, but not more one than the other. It seemed perfectly rational to LBJ, Nixon, and to Americans at the time and since that the constraints imposed by the gold standard, the seemingly rather absurd measures required to stay within it, and the never widely understood rationale underlying it, were artifacts of the past. It’s why the futuristic science fiction of the times tended to envision money as “credits” transmitted by computer.
Whether a societal decision to live within our means needs to be sealed with a gold clasp is a secondary consideration, which I think you yourself have acknowledged. It doesn’t have to be a precious metal, but, human beings being what they are, it probably will have to have some real world, objective, enforceable, understandable representation.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
“latest, in both parties – required a different mode of financing than allowed by the gold or any other standard. Going off gold completely vs. putting the national economy on a mega-credit card is a chicken and egg question. Fiat money is equally symptom and cause, in that sense, but not more one than the other.”
I agree with your common sense approach,BUT,you had to get rid of the Gold to proceed,The Irony is that you can’t get rid of gold,because its value on the commidities market is a direct reflection on the value of your currency,although not necessarily accurate, For Example,it may be that Gold SHOULD cost $3000 OZ,it’s just that the information to get to that # is hidden. The Fed stopped tracking the “actual”money supply #s(M3) in 2005,convenient with the largest dollar expansion in US history. So.if the Gold Traders had those #s,anything goes. BTW,I prefer your idea of dollars backed by Energy Units(BTUs)better than gold backing,but hold on,Energy pricing,along with food,was backed out of our official inflation #s,20 years ago,so it might end up that it takes $20 to equal a gallon of gasoline (backing) under that system.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I Have a fun trivia question for the ZCerS. What do the following have in common:The actual Bankruptcy of Orange County Calif,(The largest government bankruptcy in US history),the forthcoming legal Bankruptcy of Jefferson County Ala.(it is factually bankrupt),the forthcoming legal bankrupticies of Portugal,Spain,Ireland,Greece,Iceland,and let’s throw in California for more fun/they are all in fact,Bankrupt. And don’t tell me they all have greater debt than assets/revenue;the correct answers(There are two)are elsewhere. This is more fun than the SuperBowl,Right?
February 7th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Uh-oh. Looks like it was Zsa Zsa. I’m in for it.
February 7th, 2010 at 3:55 pm