Huge, obvious, staring us in the face--and nearly impossible to define
"The more a thing is huge and obvious and stares one in the face, the harder it is to define," G. K. Chesterton wrote.
The proposed bailout and the threat of an economic meltdown have been in my face for a while now, and I'm having a hard time coming to grips with it all. The last time I wrote about it, I was moving from fear ("The sky is falling!") to anger ("Peter is crying 'Wolf!' again.")
I heard so many reasons the original bailout bill should not be passed Monday that I was relieved it didn't. I'm not reassured by what I've heard about the one the Senate approved tonight.
I still think the public is being deceived and stampeded. The vagueness of the so-called crisis is exceeded only by its supposed urgency. I think the members of the government and the media who are not in on the plot are being deceived and stampeded along with the public.
No one knows exactly what's in the bill.
No one knows the exact amount of the commitment Congress is being asked to make.
No one knows what will happen if the bill doesn't pass. The guesses range from "nothing" to "the Fed will take over the banks and things will be back to normal in 24 hours" to "the entire global economy will crash and none of us will be able to use our credit cards to buy gas, much less get our paychecks. For years."
There's plenty of information being spewed—but what can you believe? As I taught my kids, the consequence of lying is people don't believe you any more. And, any more, so many people lie it's just about impossible to know who's lying.
Here are some of the things I've been reading in the past week that seem credible, but who knows?
"Negotiating with (Economic) Terrorists," John Medaille
"Bad News for the Bailout," Forbes (last week)
"Pets.com Is Not Coming Back and House Prices Will NOT Recover," Dean Baker
"The Bailout Defeat: A Political Credibility Crisis," by Michael Scherer, Time.com
"Main Street turns against Wall Street," by Nina Easton, Fortune
The proposed bailout and the threat of an economic meltdown have been in my face for a while now, and I'm having a hard time coming to grips with it all. The last time I wrote about it, I was moving from fear ("The sky is falling!") to anger ("Peter is crying 'Wolf!' again.")
I heard so many reasons the original bailout bill should not be passed Monday that I was relieved it didn't. I'm not reassured by what I've heard about the one the Senate approved tonight.
I still think the public is being deceived and stampeded. The vagueness of the so-called crisis is exceeded only by its supposed urgency. I think the members of the government and the media who are not in on the plot are being deceived and stampeded along with the public.
No one knows exactly what's in the bill.
No one knows the exact amount of the commitment Congress is being asked to make.
No one knows what will happen if the bill doesn't pass. The guesses range from "nothing" to "the Fed will take over the banks and things will be back to normal in 24 hours" to "the entire global economy will crash and none of us will be able to use our credit cards to buy gas, much less get our paychecks. For years."
There's plenty of information being spewed—but what can you believe? As I taught my kids, the consequence of lying is people don't believe you any more. And, any more, so many people lie it's just about impossible to know who's lying.
Here are some of the things I've been reading in the past week that seem credible, but who knows?
What might happen if a bailout bill isn't passed
"The Stock Market Is Not the Economy," Dean Baker"Negotiating with (Economic) Terrorists," John Medaille
"Bad News for the Bailout," Forbes (last week)
What was in the original bill and might be in the new bill
"Why The Bailout Reeks—And Why It Deserves To Go Down," by Jonathan Tasini, Working Life"Pets.com Is Not Coming Back and House Prices Will NOT Recover," Dean Baker
Rising anger
"The New Deal, and the Era of Angry Populism," Robert Reich"The Bailout Defeat: A Political Credibility Crisis," by Michael Scherer, Time.com
"Main Street turns against Wall Street," by Nina Easton, Fortune
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