When the United States began to sink into the quagmire that engulfs our banking industry, the stock market, and our fortunes, most politicians contended that we were only in a recession. Those of you who have been reading Ezra’s essays for a few years will be aware that for more than a year I have called this a full-fledged depression.
History has a way of repeating itself. In the 1920s, we had Warren Gamaliel Harding, Calvin Coolidge (called the Silent One), and the eminent Herbert Hoover. It was a time when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and unions that were intended to improve the lot of the poor were barred. The result was the depression of 1929.
To a large measure, the Bush years were a replica of the 1920s. We owe our misfortune at this moment to people like Senator Phil Gramm who railed against every oversight of the banking and financial community. When Bush declared war on Afghanistan and also reduced taxes, he induced Alan Greenspan, the head economist, to announce that this was good for business. The combination of the war in Afghanistan, the reduction in taxes, and the lack of oversight of our banking and financial industries produced a downtown in our fortunes. The politicians pronounced this a “recession.” Now that the government is in the hands of the Democrats, there is a much more realistic view.
It is clear that we are in the grasp of a full-fledged depression that may last for as long as five years. We got here by the profligacy of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney who announced that “deficits don’t matter.” May I say to Mr. Cheney that “the hell they don’t!” So that one candle at the end of this long tunnel has to do with our description of the current situation as a depression rather than as a temporary recession. At least some of us have the terminology correct.
A second reason for hope is that our religious institutions have not taken notice of our financial mess. They are going about the business of worshipping the gods without any concern for the financial mess that we now find ourselves in. At least we are not being subjected to the religious thought that if we prayed hard enough, the financial mess would be lifted from us. I do not hear any call from the Catholics that novenas would fix the financial situation. There are no calls from the Protestants to the effect that there should be a gigantic pray-in as a means of persuading Jesus, the Holy Ghost, Allah, or some other creature to lift us to financial prosperity.
And so as the stock market heads south, this old essayist wishes to say that there is a faint light coming from a candle at the end of this long dark tunnel. We are now told by many economists, including Paul Krugman, that this is a depression, which is what it was all along. Furthermore, in a day or two Barack Obama will unveil a budget that actually includes such stuff as the cost of the war in Iraq. Under the Bushies, the budget was published exclusive of the cost of what we were wasting in Iraq. Now we will have financial truths in terms of what we call our situation and in our budgeting process. And at least so far, the preachers have refrained from calling for Jesus to lift us out of the depths of our despair. Jesus, the Holy Ghost, Allah, or other celestial figures had nothing to do with our current financial mess. It had to do with Senator Phil Gramm, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of those clowns who believed that deficits don’t matter.
The light at the end of the tunnel is that we are dealing with our affairs now in a logical, pragmatic way. Unfortunately the last eight years have been totally wasted. I hope to live long enough to see this country returned to a degree of prosperity. But that may not happen until I become a full-fledged angel. But in the meantime, I am greatly pleased by the fact that we are injecting realism into our financial situation.
E. E. CARR
February 23, 2009
Essay 370
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Kevin’s commentary: The deficit this year is supposed to be much smaller than in has been in the past years. http://news.yahoo.com/us-budget-deficit-down-680b-lowest-5-years-204408344–finance.html
However this is to say nothing of the national debt, which continues to accumulate. Also, being the smallest since 2008 still means it’s the 5th biggest of all time. So there’s that.