Let's See What Happens

I wonder if I can pull a rant out of this. I'm feeling a bit tired today, so it may not be in me.

There's a couple decent reads here and here. Both criticize Franky Roosevelt's post-depression actions. The first claims his moves extended The Great Depression by 7 years, and the second points out the economic idiocy of the New Deal and why Democrats are fools for blindly accepting it as the thing that saved the economy.

They're both fairly common-sense and free-market oriented. It boils down to the same thing that is being said by the ignored - artificially inflating the economy achieves nothing but an air pocket. Bailing out banks in order to create unworthy credit flow means that we'll face another credit crunch in the future. Bailing out automakers to save jobs means there will continued to be overpaid, underworked employees making crap with nobody being held accountable. Circumventing established free market and corporate procedures to look like you're doing something results in an artificial economy that WILL collapse under its own bloat. And to do all this, the burden is ultimately placed on the shoulders of the taxpayers and those who did the RIGHT thing and have managed to stay solvent in these times.

As I said earlier, the reason the US thrived after The Great Depression is because they were one of the only fully-equipped countries in the world for manufacturing. They provided the cars, the construction equipment, the raw materials, and the transportation of these things to the war-battered nations of Europe and Asia. The US practically rebuilt Japan. They PRODUCED material objects that could be bought and sold for REAL money. On top of that, they built good will and made allies. The US nuked Japan... TWICE, and then became its biggest trading partner. How the fuck does that happen?

There is no such opportunity in the future. Manufacturing is outsourced and globalized, and in no danger of being physically destroyed. The US has spread only ill will to the world, be it Bush's hamfisted foreign policy or the continued economic crisis that's spanned two administrations. I'm still shocked Putin has declared the entire thing the US's fault and restarted the cold war.

And the unwillingness of the entire world (save New Zealand I think) to let the free market be a free market, and let the failures collapse, just leads to more artificial wealth and forced "green shoots" that are already dying from the lack of a root system.

In the end, the current times will be seen as a strange hump before a return to old lows that will drag on for years. Eventually, the government will give up, because someone will look at the books and realize they were insolvent a long time ago.

Obama's a nice guy... so far, he's a floundering president who increasingly disappoints with his scattershot approach to various issues in the hopes we miss the epic failures that his administration is continuing. Perhaps he needs to hire a few of those dissenting voices he claimed he wanted in his cabinet, instead of morons who spew the same bullshit reasoning and flaccid arguments for their unrealistic policies.