preface
I have lurked for a long time, enjoying (and often not) the opinions, snark, editorial, ruminations and reporting that runs down the main column of the DK home page and detouring often to the user contributions on the right rail. Perhaps I should admit from the start I am not always, nor even often, the activist I should be. Neither am I a "party line" kind of person, at least as far as the denizens of DK might be said to be a party.
Moreover, I am a doubtful, skeptical sort of person, often given to sarcasm, much to my social and professional detriment. However, my doubts and skepticism are not really always a weakness (at least in my own opinion) and I have been accumulating a list of items where doubt and skepticism might actually be of use in raising the consciousness of some folk who seem to share with me goals for our country, our society, and our world. What captures my attention, most often, are GLARING INCONSISTENCIES between facts (and widely accepted theories, which I treat as facts) and - let me say - narrative, especially where that narrative leads to prescriptions, suggestions, or other forward looking statements of suggested objectives.
The elephants in the room.
I hesitate to choose "elephants" since the word and the notion carry certain political implications. However, since they are not 500 pound gorillas, elephants will have to suffice. If they indicate that boneheaded political notions from the other-evil side have permeated the illogical substata of our leftist discourse, so be it.
Today's Elephant in the Room
Comparisons to 2007
Just stop doing it. Do you remember the good times? Do you remember when there were stories about valets in Las Vegas who owned 6 residences and were sucking money out of them through refinancing? When appraisers and mortgage application reviewers were working overtime and still couldn't keep up (and when the appraisals were worthless and the "reviews" of mortgage applications were barely even formalities)?
Do you remember when the return on the annual return on the S&P 500 was 24%, 4%, 8% and 12%? When no investment could go wrong? Do you remember when the unemployment rate was 4.6% and wages were crazy in all kinds of fields, notably in construction trades and the economy was awash in money?
Finally, do you remember that NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE NORMAL! They were a product, primarily of the plutocratic Bush administration's push to deregulate, especially the financial sector and the abandonment of enforcing the remaining, emasculated regulations.
Follow me past the orange flourish for more...
I remember meeting a man when I took a boy scout trip to Yellowstone in 2009. He was about as bitter a person as I've ever met. And why? Well, now he was living in an RV and working part time in the park and barely getting by, but all he could think about was 2006 and early 2007. He had been a mortgage reviewer. He had been making more than $100,000 a year and living large. Life was a big party. Now he was humbled and he did not like the come down one bit. The thing was, before his stint as a mortgage reviewer, he had been a down at the heels blue collar worker. He was really NEVER qualified to be a mortgage reviewer. But it had been "taken away" from him and he resented the whole world for it.
I, too, was making more money than at any other point in my career. I traveled to New York and Los Angeles monthly or more often even in my role as an internet marketing consultant to large nonprofits and medium sized companies. I saw many business plans and every single one banked success on a target customer with more than $100,000 in household income, and most aimed even higher. I have eventually found my feet and hope I was never bitter - since the boys can see such things and there is always a need for volunteer leaders.
An whether it was what was happening to me, personally, or to the economy in general, NONE OF THOSE THINGS WERE NORMAL!
So why, knowing all that, would we compare now (which by the way, I consider to be at the quite nice end of the normal scale, all things considered) with that period which could be described as bubble, frothy or even the description I view as most accurate - Santorum, why would you ever compare anything remotely normal with that period? If you were honest, you would not.
I realize a great many people want very much to get back to the party, to the jolly, roaring, easy money/easy success kind of economy. Just remember, it was never REAL. If you want to imagine REAL policies and programs that make a REAL difference in the lives of REAL people, then be real yourself and stop comparing to the big party, stop comparing to 2007.