If they didn't pass it, why unemployment would approach (gasp!) 10%. If they did, The One promised it wouldn't crack 8%, and The One knows about these things.
In the main, a Congress starved for fresh pork did just that. They never read it, and they passed it.
It didn't work.
Not even close, and even TurboTax Timmy admits it. (Big HT to innocentbystanders. net, by the way)
From Reuters this morning:
The Labor Department said on Friday payrolls rose 431,000 as the government hired 411,000 workers to conduct the population count. That was the largest monthly increase since March 2000 and marked a fifth straight month of gains.
But private employment, a barometer of labor market strength, increased just 41,000 after rising 218,000 in April, as employers opted to increase hours rather than hire new workers. The average workweek rose to 34.2 hours from 34.1 hours in April.
(Think about that second paragraph for a moment. This means that net fewer employees, since retirements and resignations aren't being replaced, are being required to take on more responsibilities, with no increase in compensation. Ya'll know that feeling: The sense that you're now doing the work of three people, instead of one ten or fifteen years ago. It's not just you--it is the reality of our Brave New Economy. And when you burn out, fifteen people stand in line to shoulder your load. It's a wonderful life, here in the land of YesWeCan.)
As many sane voices quietly attempted to explain, it was not going to work, because mathematically, it couldn't work. After almost eighty years of massive governmental interventions and tinkering in the economy and culture, and massive growth of debt, more debt and more intervention proved futile. Debt and intervention are the problem, not the solution.
It was the governmental equivalent of BP's ill-fated attempt to 'top-kill' the infamous oil leak a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a noble effort, but no pump has been built that could push that much oil and gas back down into the ground. If it weren't a major gusher in the first place, the oil rig would still be quietly beavering away, and no one would have given any of it a second thought.
There is no amount of debt and money printing we can engage in that can refloat an economy crippled by debt and money printing. You can't cure a drunk with another case of Jack Daniels--that just accelerates the liver damage. As one old recovered drunk succinctly stated: 'The solution ain't in the problem. The solution's in the solution!'
The analogies break down past a certain point, obviously. But at the points they disintegrate, it only makes us as a culture look more foolish. It isn't like we weren't warned decades ago that the massive growth of government could only end in tears. It isn't like we didn't have the lessons of history at hand, ancient and modern, that demonstrated that only free market/free society/small government models survive, that top-down models always crash, because they must.
And now, as OleSouth prepares to treat the sainted Mrs. OS to breakfast at the local cafe, he is greeted with the visage of Cristina Romer, one of The One's White House shills, cheerfully assuring us all that we just have to give the stimulus programs time to work, etc. etc. etc., that all will be well and all manner of things will be well.
After all, The One is in charge. Trust us. Oprah does.
The interviewer is incredulous.
She doesn't look like she believes it, either, as she engages in verbal Top-Kill.
We now wait to see if the equity markets begin to finally respond realistically to reality. All those fools who bought long for too long are now about to experience the old 'wash-and-rinse', to borrow a favorite phrase from the wonderful Arthur Cutten.
No comments:
Post a Comment