In our culture, we have lost the ability to delay gratification. We charge it NOW, because we DESERVE it NOW! We are the entitlement generation(s). Look at how few are revolving credit debt free? Look at how many stacked auto loans because they couldn't bear the thought of not buying that new car even though their current car was 12 months old.
However... we DID oppose the first bailout. I think the problem now is that people are tired of fighting our gov't when they no it matters not, and they are being fed a steady stream of disinformation.
Like banks having assets with NO REAL VALUE on their books but listing them in the millions or billions. Hey, it's not the banks' fault there's no market for total chit. <g>
But in that case, people have no idea what mark-to-market even means. The "press" (that is, the corporate PR arm) doesn't explain how incredibly outrageous that assertion is.
The voters, for their part, aren't offered the actual, reality-based choices, e.g.
Which of the following do you choose?
1) transfer all future tax receipts to thugs on Wall Street who've already robbed you blind and sold you down the river? This choice results in slow, cascading crash with a final bottom that extends for years with high unemployment and permanently lower standard of living for all but the top 0.4% who you voted to give all your future tax payments to
2) Let the cancerous banks fail, simply shutter AIG and void all their useless gambling-addict driven CDS (paper losses, hundreds of trillions; actual loss to the economy, nearly no change). Stock market crashes (oh no! the wealthy, who own most of it, get hammered, then get drunk). A TON of chitty crap vanishes from the malinvestment universe, and real businesses with real business plans begin to emerge. Standard of living is lower, everything is more obvious, but at the end of the decade, employment is higher, production is higher, and our dollar has only lost 20% rather than 70% of its value;
3) break a bunch of windows and see if that helps. This is the war option. And the end of all the wars, we are split into several nations and most of us are flat broke. |
