What to do now?
Antoine and Michael have some ideas, which they related to Brian - great podcast from three of the smartest friends I have.
Doing nothing would be better than what they are doing now. Better still would be to cut public spending in all countries (notably the USA) where the budget deficit is big. Yes that will all be horrible, but the horror will be sorted relatively soon. What they are actually doing will prolong the misery, which is what they have done in Japan, as Michael J explained. Trying to ensure a soft landing, as they are now, will merely leave the wreckage on the runway indefinitely. The runway wreckage metaphor did not occur in the conversation but lots of other regular get-the-grief-over-with-quickly metaphors did, notably surgery. If you have to have an operation, you want it all done at once.
Filed under: Life
You’re too kind.
I find it bizarre that the “common sense” approach of world leaders and bankers is to solve the problem of excess credit… by forcing more credit into the financial markets.
In my Putney Debates talk last Friday I contrasted two quotes:
Stuart Varley of Fox Business News observed that “what we have done has not worked, therefore we must do more.”
Albert Einstein could have predicted this: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Imagine if physicians acted this way:
1) Patient has high blood pressure: give him two pints of blood. If that fails, give two more.
2) Patient is obese: force feed cream cakes. If that fails, dip them in suet and toffee first. Repeat until it “works” or patient dies.
3) Patient is hyperglicemic: inject glucose straight into a vein.
We will have trillions of dollars in extra taxes and debt to pay, that is not disputable, thanks to these multiple “bail-outs.” But when they fail we will still have the original mess to deal with, with millions of people suffering for longer. So these “cures” are poison, comfort eating for the obese. They are worse than useless.