How many posts have I seen today about the impending collapse of fill-in-the-blank (civilization, America, the economy, the universe and everything in it)???
In my worst of moods I have never been as pessimistic as has become the narcissistic, myopic liberal norm. Oh you do revel in it, don't you. Somehow you've managed to make even moaning about the world sound like a cloying forest fairy eating treacle fudge.
We've had a few rocky economic months. Some firms have had to lay off employees. The auto companies are getting their asses kicked by Japan ... what else is new ... if they can't fix their union and pension problems they may as well go bankrupt and start a new U.S. auto firm. The old school U.S. airlines have a similar union problem, so while all the Virgin Atlantic and Cathay Pacific stewardesses look like little models, we've got American and United with a bunch of old battleaxes clomping down the aisles. Merely a surface symptom, I admit, but a symptom still.
Oh, the agony. High oil prices, un uptick in inflation and unemployment, a few bad months on the stock market ... WE'RE DOOMED!!!!!!!!
Either they really believe it, or they're up to something. Or maybe both, they could have just talked themselves into it after repeating the doom and gloom for so many freakin' years.
If you repeat constantly that we're heading for a recession you'll eventually be right.
But if you remind yourselves that we tend to be a reasonably successfull country in terms of economics, in spite of some of the rocky periods we've been through, then you could actually be looking at these circumstances as an opportunity.
Don't bail out Fannie and Freddi, stop tempting people with loans they can't afford, be responsible for yourself and don't take loans you can't afford. Witness Wachovia lay off 10,000+ people, watch as GM gets its ass kicked because it missed the hybrid fad, bitch about gas prices, I don't care how much you complain, but hell I can even put a liberal hat on for the moment and express some of the good news:
- Some big banks will go out of business. I thought liberals didn't like big business in general, so maybe this will serve those damned predatory lenders right.
- GM, Ford, and others are probably rushing like mad to make hybrids. Even though I honestly believe the hybrid crase is a bunch of bullshit, with my liberal hat on I would be screaming "yay" for the environment! We've been lecturing, bitching, whining, moaning, crying, and screaming for those evil automotive companies to explroe alternative fuel cars, and now some of them are finally doing it gang busters, and those who aren't are getting their asses handed to them ... I'd say if I were a liberal. These are good times for you! Come on!
- Oil prices have finally gone where they need to be for cities to be scrambling to dust off old plans for clean mass transit. More bike lanes, yay!!! Solar and wind power are being pitched by old oil men!!! Yay! Yay! Yay!
- Unemployment is climbing a bit. Maybe we can demagogue the hell out of it and bring back welfare!?!? Reverse that stupid ending-of-welfare that Clinton and the Republicans pulled off in the nineties. Miserable bastards!
- More people with more problems ... Democrats can win on that! Yay!
And with my conservative hat back on, yes, there are some disturbing trends in terms of oil prices, inflation, stock market, housing, and credit. "Disturbing" does not mean the end of the world. Unemployment may be ticking slightly up, but it is still at or near historically ideal levels. Any further less than 5% than it was recently and even liberal economists say it's difficult to conceive of lower levels. Ask someone who remembers life in America circa 1978 what they'd do to hear unemployment levels were even 8% ... they'd go bananas and then cry like little babies out of joy and excitement.
Because of the information revolution we are operating at a higher level of productivity than nearly anyone could have imagined a few short decades ago. We survived the bubble bursting in 2000 during the tech wreck and we'll survive the housing bubble collapse, too. Why? Because in spite of rational concerns there are still underlying strengths to the global economy. The tech bubble and then the housing bubble happened for reasons. Some of those reasons were that so many freakin' people had jobs for so long, and operated at such an increase in productivity over years past, that we really actually are shifting from the industrial revolution to the information revolution. And we're still just at the beginning of it.
People, once chained to their desks, started being able to work from home instead of the office. People once chained to the home office can now whip out an iphone or a blackberry and track all of the necessary information they could possibly require while strolling through the woods or sitting on a park bench in the middle of nowhere, or vacationing in spain, or what have you. The demand for people to be driving everywhere all the time is going to go down for more reasons than just gas prices.
I could go on and on. Back it all up with facts. And give you all the reason you need for a little hope, faith, and enthusiasm. But right now I've got to drop my dog off with a friend because we're leaving for Germany for a month.
Don't worry, I'll be checking this board any time I feel like it. Because I can do that in 2008.
And we can bitch about anything we want, 24.7.365, from anywhere in the world, and nobody can stop us. Do you not understand how significant and important this is?
So whine away you forest fairies. Keep working on that unique tone you have while doing it, too. I've long had this snapshot of you strange liberals dancing furiously in a circle in the woods while wearing dirty white linen rags and I love it when you make it come to life.
