tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post2265152863550329172..comments2024-01-22T18:22:29.391-08:00Comments on hedera's corner: The Sorceror's Apprenticehederahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-35521393483376748202008-10-06T15:32:00.000-07:002008-10-06T15:32:00.000-07:00The financial "system" has detoured a good deal of...The financial "system" has detoured a good deal of the available capital out of the routine economy of profit and loss, and turned it into inflated excelsior. The money many people were "using" to buy homes and cars and vacations and graduate school degrees was borrowed. The Federal government, too, was living on borrowed money. Just how does a government borrow money from itself? Answer that one and you get a mint.<BR/><BR/>Now a lot of that borrowing will turn sour. We've been exporting our jobs and investment capital abroad for the last 25 years, and sooner or later that had to have a negative effect. With no middle class, the American democracy pretty much goes into stagflation (dysfunction). Because a healthy middle class is what everything else--production, consumption, investment, etc.--is based on. Throughout the 80's and 90's, so-called savvy economists have been telling us we need to "compete" on a world-wide market: Think smart, work hard, be flexible, get more education, etc. But that was bullshit. Bottom line, America was losing the economic war with China and India and Indonesia. The latest credit crisis is but one symptom of this disease. If people can't afford to pay for their homes, then the real estate market falls apart. The same is true for every other product and material a capitalist society makes or trades in. Truncated economies--characteristic of third world countries like Mexico or Brazil or Arabia--are oligarchies. If no one was watching...well, America has become, or is rapidly becoming one of those. The media and the legislators are bought and paid for. And that includes our sweet little former liberal puppets like Diane and Barbara and Nancy. They're shilling for the corporations. The "bail-out"--gosh, does anyone remember that??--was just two days ago. Time flies in a recession. Wasn't that supposed to stop the bleeding? The Dow dipped as much as 720 points today, before "levelling" out at about minus 360. <BR/><BR/>It's a nightmare that's just begun. Lift up your skirts, ladies, we're going through Hell.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com