John Mason at Seeking Alpha offers good long-term insight on the relationship between governmental behaviour and economic (and societal) outcomes. The last three paragraphs are pretty chilling, if you are an American who loves freedom. His article is about the slow, steady, and inexorable destruction of the dollar.
He pegs the problem early on:
'The underlying problem is the fiscal irresponsibility of the United States government, with the exception of one administration, beginning in the 1960s.'
The exception he speaks of is in the 1990's, when after two years of Clinton, the electorate swept in a freshman class that was intent on restraining the growth and expenditure of the federal government.
At least, they did for a while. Then they succumbed to both the seductions of office, the outrageous behaviour of Bill Clinton(who should have resigned, by golly, out of simple decency), the blandishments of the bankers, and the myth that easy money would solve all.
But enough about them.
We, ourselves, are the problem. There was a sea-change in the culture in the 1960's, was there not?
We, the boomers, decided to throw off the shackles of our parents' restraints, and closed our ears to the warnings that busts follow booms, and all that 'wheels grind slowly, but grind they do' stuff. We were going to 'make all things new' ourselves, thank you very much, sans Marx or Jesus(to quote that book title from the 70's).
We decided to become consumers! And we were very, very good at it.
And Mr. Denninger shows us what resulted.
Don't skip over this link. Print it, frame it, and hang it in your children's nursery.
Ethics shape the culture. Culture shapes the economy.
(Disclosure: A position in UDN, and continuing to accumulate steadily.)
No comments:
Post a Comment