We who write editorials and particularly we who rant on blogs know in our hearts that we stand alone in the wilderness, baying at the moon. On the other hand one of my correspondents noted, “Six days and you have not opined via blog. You are a disgrace to the whole of blogdom.”
Alrighty, then. It is indeed Monday. Here it is.
Radio guy Josh Mothner ranted about one of my pet peeves this morning: our gummint in its infinite wisdom has decided to solve the credit crisis by … wait for it … borrowing money.
Sheesh.
I am not an economist. I do not even play one on television. It seems obvious to me, though, that our economists are a wee bit warped. The world economy is tanking because the American economy tanked. The American economy tanked because we lost faith in it. We lost faith in it because a bunch of bankers decided to rip us off. That bunch of bankers decided they could rip us off because we live on tomorrow. We live on tomorrow because we want that bright and shiny object right now. We want that bright and shiny object now because we’ve learned we don’t have to pay for it. We got into this mess by our own avarice.
When you borrow money against your house to pay off your credit card, sooner or later you have to sell your house.
$700 billion and climbing.
Not even Bill Gates and Warren Buffett together has that in their combined piggy bank. And we can’t just print it.
Oh. Wait. I know! We’ll issue more Treasury notes. We’ll borrow it!
Let’s see. The banks don’t have enough money to lend to their customers so their customers can buy more stuff from companies that depend on the banks to borrow money from.
So tell me again exactly where the $700 billion and climbing will come from?
Oh. Wait. I know! We’ll borrow it!
It is interesting that, in the middle of the borrowing fever, the number one radio advertiser on that morning radio show is … Rolex. Bright and shiny object anyone? Unfortunately nobody listens to Mr. Mothner, either.
I wish, Dick wrote plaintively, that someone other than the Man in the Moon took these brilliant analyses to heart. There is a chance for a curmudgeon like me, though. I found out today that I’m going to be Andy Rooney when I grow up. See, I’m already growing his eyebrows.
The answer, of course, is for the government to print more money but someone else’s name on it and let them pay for it. Sure, why not? Just scrawl “Canada” across the top and put the stuff in circulation.
They’ve been hooting for more than a year that theirs is worth more than ours; and ours is the standard that they use to judge theirs; so, let them justify their status.
I mean, what are they going to do, come down with their *army tank* and arrest us? Whoop! Or send their plane down and bomb the the print shop?
Seriously though, Dick’s assessment that borrowing big money to pay big debt is a foolish folly–if I may wax redundant–as the law of diminishing returns is immediately invoked. —and all is made worse by unbridled guvnment spending of even more borrowed money.
Years ago our household fell into financial straits and had to borrow money for relief. My financial manager–who also happens to be the cook, as well as a sharing breadwinner–forearmed against this slippery-slope by putting us on a belt-tightening diet of beans and cornbread until the season of plenty returned.
But, of course, we are conservative republicans and can do things like that. Try it on liberal America, and you will get voted out of office.