Posted by
Andrews on Sunday, December 21, 2008 2:44:39 PM
There was one great comment on the George Will piece
I mentioned before, well, perhaps not so interesting in itself, but very interesting in the topic it brings up. It is a subject I have touched upon a few times, but one I have no explicitly mentioned recently, and that is impatience.
Actually, I would expand on this a bit. There are two problems with our modern approach to politics, though they are related. The second is impatience, as mentioned by the poster. We are simply unwilling to wait for change. But really, that is the outcome of our bigger and primary problem, our unwillingness to experience any hardship. We have become the pain free generation, and that has made us impatient. As patience involves enduring hardship for a later payoff, we are unable to do it, because we are simply unwilling to suffer. Any slight discomfort sends us running to the government for a fix.
This unwillingness to suffer at all, even when necessary, is what led us to this problem. First, the Carter Community Reinvestment Act, a bill designed to let people with no income and no credit get into a house. Traditionally the route to this end was to wait and save, build up a down payment and establish credit, then buy the house. But as we cannot wait and cannot endure any deprivation, Carter introduced this shortcut. And then, to make a bad idea worse, Clinton decided ever the Carter solution required too much waiting, and made the law even more lax.
To make matters worse, whenever the economy seemed to flag, under both the Clinton and the Bush administrations, the Federal Reserve would turn on the printing presses and start churning out the money, using inflation to keep us from having to experience any economic hardships. In fact, ever since FDR effectively cut us loose from the gold standard (and Nixon formally severed the last ties) Reagan was the only president willingly to suffer a deflation without resorting to inflationary measures to "fix" it. Excepting Reagan, deflation, or any economic slow down, has inevitably been met with decreased interest rates and expanding money supplies.
But this topic really deserves a more thorough response. The general unwillingness to wait for result, or to suffer a hardship in order to reap future rewards, has caused untold damage to our economy and our government in general. It is a much more expansive topic than I can cover in the short post I can write right now. So, perhaps it is best to wait until after my vacation to deal with this more fully.
For now, let me simply say that we are remaining true to form. rather than allow the economy to correct itself, facing the consequences of two decades of inflation and bad loans, we are convinced once again that we can avoid any suffering at if only we manage to print just the right amount of money. The fact that it has never worked before does not discourage the proponents. And so, once more, we embark on the same error that led to every past recession.