The stock market crashes. Our political leaders are immobilized by ideology and rancor. We are facing a possible economic meltdown. We're adrift, in danger, without leadership.
Yet, I ended the day thinking it had gone well, yesterday, September 29, 2008.
The financial crisis didn't happen yesterday and it wasn't going to be solved yesterday. It built up over years, maybe decades. In the recent past, there have been many warning shots -- Enron, MCI, Thailand's housing bubble in the early 90s, even the savings and loan crisis -- and while they all aren't the same and they don't all lead in a straight line to our problem today, there is a theme:
We have been living in a fog. The culture wars, the free market ideology, the media manipulation, the conventional wisdom machine: they all obscured the basic reality of what government is and does.
We have a chance to get through the noise now. That is why yesterday was a good day.
I would say we had a fair political culture from 1932 to 1980. Yes, there was a red scare, the vietnam war, horrific interventions around the world, plenty of bull. I say that the fair period allowed for rationality, particularly economic rationality. We had a chance to consider our options.
Here we are right before an election with an economic meltdown. The reality of the situation may finally silence the noise machine. Forget abortion. Forget culture. Leave your religion at home. No folksy talk. No macho posturing. No war talk. No gay marriage. No earmarks. No affirmative action. And no lipstick. We have to rethink the role of government in society.
Consensus on the street: this election must be about our political-economic system.
We set aside our cultural bull yang and they put theirs down. Truce.
There is no natural balance between markets and the government. How we control markets is a policy question.
Globalization and rules of capital flow and trade do not grow naturally out of technology. Trade and capital flow are policies, just like everything else. What happens with these things, what the international rules are depend on what the governments decide. We are not at the mercy of forces beyond our control.
It's not about get government out of the way. Our government, working with other governments, can set the rules. And we're not migratory birds on the endangered species list: we have some say in this shit.
We squander 60% of our non-entitlement budget on defense (or offense, it would seem). We're swimming in debt. Our infrastructure is bad. Our trade deficit is stunning. We're stuck in two pointless wars. Our people do not have the skills they need. We're entirely dependent on one product we don't have: oil. Our health care system is broken. The dollar is sinking.
We're broke. We can drive to the poor house in a new Lexus, but we're still broke.
It's bad. It effects all of us. It happened because we had bad government for 30 years. It is more than just the last 8 pathetic years.
And no, it's not up to Barack to lead us out of the wilderness. What kind of president he is will depend in part of where the country is and what we manage to do down here on the street.
The Republicans need a thorough drubbing. They rode their culture war bull as far as it would go, got plenty of support from the working folks along the way. It was all bullshit. They WILL NEVER BE THE PARTY OF THE WORKING PEOPLE. It's not in their DNA. They will never be the PARTY OF PEACE. Let's bury them.
The DNA of the Democrats is different. We still have FDR in our blood. Who cares in the New Deal ended the depression: when we came out the other side we had a better society.
Now, Barack has to come a long way to be FDR. He's still talking to Robert Rubin. Pelosi and Frank should be ashamed of themselves for trying to push this crappy bail out over the wall. They ain't perfect.
But our guys can be cured with a dose of shock therapy.
The hoodwinkers trot out their ideas when we have a disaster. Look at the crap they came up with after Katrina. But this disaster is so big they may get more disaster capitalism than they bargained for.
I want real government. I want a real discussion. Everything on the table: the defense budget, real changes in tax policy, re-regulation where we need it.
I don't know what will happen politically or economically. But at least we got us a break yesterday. This crisis cannot be about bankers.
This year, we bury the Rebublicans. In two years, we reload and it's open season on Democrats.