February has been a drought on this blog - couple of tiny posts, then silence. A few of my readers have pointed this out, wondered when I’d start posting agin. I’ve been wondering that myself. Lately, I don’t seem to have anything to say. Looking back to what started going through my head around the time when posting tailed off, I see one topic popping up again and again. The Bail-out.
It seems like the Bail-out should be a mother-lode of material. And yet, I seem mined out. Well, that’s not really the case. I think the problem is, I’ve finally encountered an issue about which I can not make up my mind. Should our government spend an extra trillion dollars or two trillion dollars in an attempt to jump start the economy? I don’t know.
In general, I oppose government intervetion in the economy. And the amount of money involved here is staggering. If we end up spending around $2 trillion that’ll be roughly an extra $7,000 per US citizen. And that’s on top of the $11 trillion ($37,000 per US citizen) we alread owe. So my household’s share of the national debt is around $175,000. There’s only one way the US is ever going to pay this thing off: rampant inflation. So we’ve got that to look forward to sooner or later.
On the other hand, if we don’t do this, a lot of the top guys are predicting that the country slides deeper into a depression which may take a decade or more to climb out of. On the other, other hand, that may happen anyway… and it’s got to be better to have a depression where we’re $11 trillion in debt than one where we’re $13 trillion in debt. Not the either sounds very good.
So, if anyone has some insight into this situation that will blow everything else away and crystallize the situation for me, I’d appreciate hearing it. Until then, I’m vapor locked. It looks like I’m just going to have to accept this and move on. In any case, my lack of a firm opinion on the subject won’t keep things from happening.
It seems like the Bail-out should be a mother-lode of material. And yet, I seem mined out. Well, that’s not really the case. I think the problem is, I’ve finally encountered an issue about which I can not make up my mind. Should our government spend an extra trillion dollars or two trillion dollars in an attempt to jump start the economy? I don’t know.In general, I oppose government intervetion in the economy. And the amount of money involved here is staggering. If we end up spending around $2 trillion that’ll be roughly an extra $7,000 per US citizen. And that’s on top of the $11 trillion ($37,000 per US citizen) we alread owe. So my household’s share of the national debt is around $175,000. There’s only one way the US is ever going to pay this thing off: rampant inflation. So we’ve got that to look forward to sooner or later.
On the other hand, if we don’t do this, a lot of the top guys are predicting that the country slides deeper into a depression which may take a decade or more to climb out of. On the other, other hand, that may happen anyway… and it’s got to be better to have a depression where we’re $11 trillion in debt than one where we’re $13 trillion in debt. Not the either sounds very good.
So, if anyone has some insight into this situation that will blow everything else away and crystallize the situation for me, I’d appreciate hearing it. Until then, I’m vapor locked. It looks like I’m just going to have to accept this and move on. In any case, my lack of a firm opinion on the subject won’t keep things from happening.
My situation reminds me of a certain Underdog cartoon. As you may recall, Underdog was fond of rhyming as he aprehended the bad guys. In this particular episode, the bad guys realized that this was less a habit than it was a compulsion. So they stole a bunch of oranges. With no clear rhyme for orange, Underdog was stymied. Sure, he could have called it fruit, or used the latin name or whatever, but he froze up. Without a rhyme, he vapor locked. The bad guys then started stealing things colored orange… orange cars, orange fur coats, whatever. He didn’t even really need to rhyme with orange for these, but he was fixated on it by this point, unable to function. Finally, the badguy henchman made an error. Whilst passing a fruit stand, he grabbed an apple to munch on. Underdog, immediately himself again, leapt up full of vigor and pointing madly at the henchman, uttered “A ha! An apple you grapple!” and took the two off to jail. It didn’t make sense as a story, but it makes great sense to me.
