A bigger pie – Mr. Pournelle’s main thesis that they way out of this mess is to make the pie bigger. Hopefully the rest of this stuff can fall in to place. Those of us willing to work hard are probably growing weary of those who aren’t willing to work at all.
Of course there is a shiny brass lining to our current state of affairs: Top 10 Used Exotic Cars: Get that Aston Martin for the Price of a Honda. If I were in the market for a car a nice DB7, even if 10 years old, would go very nicely in my garage. But I want another sportbike so I’ll wait a few weeks before I shop around again. If the economy really is in the toilet like is being advertised, and I still have a gig lined up, then I shouldn’t have much trouble scoring either a new Ducati or Kawasaki at a steep discount in early March. Not sure if I should celebrate or cry.
Mixed Signals
Economic data expected to show more weakness The actual numbers they mention are not pretty. But are they the drop off in to the abyss we’ve been being promised? I hesitate to put a lot of credence in what economists say because they get it wrong so friggin often. They’re like weather men. Or perhaps ancient priests divining the future by digging around in the guts of a dead sheep. Either way I take their forecasts with a lick of salt and a shot of tequila. Some lime too if I have any. But I like bourbon better.
I get that there is science behind what economists do, but I don’t think it is a well understood science where one and one is always two. Sometimes it is zero and other days it is eight. I understand that big companies have screwed up. But we have not killed off a significant portion of the population. No natural disaster has befallen us. Instead media has been calling for a recession for nearly two years and we finally have one. I’m not big on conspiracy but I feel like media set this up to get their man in to the white house. And now that he is there, it turns out he isn’t who they thought he was: “Obama’s Job-Creation Program Flunks Basic Math: Caroline Baum”.
It’s funny all the way around this situation. First, our deal beloved leaders get us in to this mess by directing their pet to help people buy houses. Many of these people could not afford to buy a house in the first place. Or if they could afford a house they ended up buying more house than they could afford. At the same time the geniuses on Wall Street start creating really cool new products that have no relationship to reality. Oh, let us not forget that while this is going on our beloved leaders rewrote the rules on bankruptcy.
So, when it finally hits the fan what do we do? We essentially give a blank check to the same idiots who got us here! Brilliant! The same Wall Street dorks who came up with the products. The same Washington ferrets that directed that the money should be lent out. It’s the same cast of characters who got us are going to get us out? Not.
As I’m putting this together I found this: “Obama’s Race Against the Economy”. Mr. Blumer links off to two other related articles: “Could It Be ….. Recovery? If So, Hurry Up Already” by Mr. Blumer and “5 Reasons Why the Economy Might Recover Faster Than You Think in 2009” by Mr. Pethokoukis.
These three people are saying what I have been thinking. But the problem I have is determining whether or not we’re suffering from wishful thinking or not. I don’t want to see people losing their jobs, their houses and the other things they’ve been working for.
I make fun of people who bought more house than they could really afford, but they didn’t do it out of malice. They did it because they were optimistic about the future. If you can reasonably afford a $150,000.00 house you don’t buy a $200,000 house instead because you expect to lose your job in the next five years. You buy it because you think things are going well and in five years you’ll be kicking ass so hard you could buy a $300,000 house. Perhaps not the most realistic view of the world, but I prefer it to the alternative. What if all the Bobs and Kathys had not shown up for the party and had continued renting or had bought $120,000 houses instead? What if they were really pessimistic and just kept their money in CDs. They didn’t invest it because – hello! They’re pessimistic! They expect it all to go to hell tomorrow. You buy a small farm far outside of town. You stock it with Twinkies and small arms. You don’t get a credit card, you don’t borrow money. You do everything you can to avoid any obligations to anybody. You end up economically looking Amish. Perhaps not a bad choice, but still. I prefer the optimists who go to Vegas lose it all and then get back up to rebuild all over again because next time – they will take the house to the cleaners. Those people are more fun to be around. Plus, eventually if they keep trying they eventually win.
[Update] I sorta screwed up my attributions for "Race Against", "Could it Be", and "5 Reasons" - so I did a quick edit to make things clearer about who did what.