I think the biggest problem we have in this country is that everyone is addicted to easy credit and living beyond their means. The government is moving heaven and earth to prevent the housing bubble from fully deflating even though the high prices were all based on loans couldn't people afford in the first place.
Any time someone suggested letting the investment banks fail, they raised the spectre of global economic collapse, even though A) no one really knows what would happen in that kind of systemic collapse, and B) the people responsible for predicting that had unfathomably huge incentives to paint it as a doomsday scenario. After all, those are the people who made billions from the bubble economy, and who stood to lose not only their millions, but also their prestige and employability in the future.
I do agree that electing Ron Paul would have caused some short term pain, but I'm more convinced that by not taking our medicine we are greatly diminishing our long-term prospects. However the weakness of democracy—especially in the digital age—is that people will always elect the feel-good candidate over the one with real long-term vision no matter how brilliant the latter or how ignorant the former.
I think the biggest problem we have in this country is that everyone is addicted to easy credit and living beyond their means. The government is moving heaven and earth to prevent the housing bubble from fully deflating even though the high prices were all based on loans couldn't people afford in the first place.
Any time someone suggested letting the investment banks fail, they raised the spectre of global economic collapse, even though A) no one really knows what would happen in that kind of systemic collapse, and B) the people responsible for predicting that had unfathomably huge incentives to paint it as a doomsday scenario. After all, those are the people who made billions from the bubble economy, and who stood to lose not only their millions, but also their prestige and employability in the future.
I do agree that electing Ron Paul would have caused some short term pain, but I'm more convinced that by not taking our medicine we are greatly diminishing our long-term prospects. However the weakness of democracy—especially in the digital age—is that people will always elect the feel-good candidate over the one with real long-term vision no matter how brilliant the latter or how ignorant the former.