Because I’m a nobody, I can afford to be blunt and say rash things. For example, I refuse to give any Keynesian economist the dignity of being at all sincere or honest believers, unless they are willing to admit they are complete morons. I’d be willing to say that on national television, in the faces of the biggest names associated with such economic foolishness, but no one is going to ask me.
There are several big names much smarter than me sharing the metaphor of the US economy being an airliner which has run out of fuel. They all agree it won’t simply fly into the side of a mountain or plummet from the sky and crater the ground. Rather, we will come down in a nice flat glide in a place which doesn’t happen to be a runway. We sold the landing gear for extra fuel (along with seats and our luggage), so we’ll be coming in, ripping and tearing everything near us, eventually destroying the aircraft, too. It’ll be a rough landing. By God’s mercy, perhaps we won’t burst into flames where it comes to rest.
It didn’t have to be this way, but the flight crew were listening to the wrong ground control station. We could have flown in a better direction, through far less storms, and come down on a proper runway. Why anyone ever believed it was possible to simply stay up in the air is beyond me, but that’s what Keynesian economists believe. That’s why I don’t take them seriously, and they return the favor. I’m sure I’m in good company on that, but if you keep probing what I believe about such things, I’ll end up way out in wilderness, nearly alone.
You don’t have to study economics and the other social sciences to realize instinctively flying around in the sky is not a place to build an economy. You won’t crash land if your feet are on the ground. Maybe it’s not so adventurous and exciting, but keeping a simple economy which aims to sustain a decent life for the largest possible number of folks limits the risk to those involved. And what have we gained by flying?
Will we be fondly remembered as some great nation? It takes a special delusion to imagine that. We are already hated by most of the world, and justly so. Maybe we have discovered a lot of amazing things, but most of them haven’t made life better, just more complicated. Tell me how many people you know really involved in this modern existence who actually have internal peace? That is, assuming they gave it much thought at all. We can do all kinds of wild and unimaginable things, but we can’t seem to improve on the technology of building a good family life and sending forth wise children into the world. Our nation has a few, but they hardly characterize us.
I can’t authoritatively say this is the crash landing I keep thinking is coming. I’m pretty sure I can’t explain exactly why I believe it won’t be all at once, even though I’ve read some good analysts who can say. I think each one is missing a thing or two, and I can’t buy their scenario completely. But I’m pretty sure the Dow Jones Industrial Index won’t drop all at once, nor will the dollar crash overnight. They’ll both lurch and scare everyone, repeatedly, but something inside me insists this is going to be one long, painful slog.
As a side note, honesty compels me to reveal I’m expecting a big surprise for my birthday. It’s part prophetic sense, part intuition, but for the past couple of months I’ve been sensing mid-September will bring some fireworks not entirely anticipated. Even I don’t have a big enough ego to think God is doing this for my benefit; it’s just a divine coincidence I’m expecting. We’ll see.
-
-
Contact me:
-
ehurst@radixfidem.blog
Categories
Not intending to disagree because I don’t have a clue and if I did I’d stand a better than even chance of being wrong. But any structure built around interlocking dependencies has the potential for things getting interesting quickly, as opposed to getting interesting in a more gradual way.
I’m not certain a flying aircraft is the best analogy. When things go bad in the air the autopilot steps aside and a lot depends on the pilots, most frequently. In this instance the pilots are hanging around in back somewhere with stewardess ladies sitting on their laps because they never passed the trust the autopilots and flying an airplane was never their chief concern anyway.
Nice post. Thanks for sharing it.
We won’t know until it happens, Jules. Part of the reasoning offered by most of those with whom I tend to agree is the assumption this whole thing was planned to fail from the start. I don’t doubt those unseen hands of the Shadow Government could knock it all down in one day, but I doubt that’s their plan, based on extrapolations from the past. It’s fun to guess, anyway, since nothing we can do will affect the final story. In fact, it’s pretty darn hard to change what’s going to happen to oneself at this point.
The people that caused this situation aren’t interested in an economy that can actually support people only one that will be productive of the greatest profits. The people that engineer commodities bubbles for sheer profit are obviously unmoved by the over valuing of those commodities causing untold suffering around the world. How can business be allowed to starve people to death for profit in this way- perhaps your god knows? In the end the people that profit hope to leave with a golden parachute before the plane comes down. The sad thing is that most of them probably will, floating in for a soft landing at their villa in the south of France.
Well, DG, I suppose people profiting from human misery will be part of this world as long as it lasts.