So, how was the Australian wine? I started sampling them quite some time back, when the really good reliable ones were also really affordable. You know, before the likes of Greg Norman, buying all the shelf space.

Funny, but unlike the peanut gallery that frequents this blog, I don’t look to the funnies for economic data!
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While I don’t much agree with much of what you post….I still took the time to read them based on your avoidance of the truly banal.

That time has reached an end. I’m quite sure you aren’t as moronic/dense as this post indicates….but life is short….I see no reason to avoid the obvious conclusion.

Bon Chance.

a lot of truth in that cartoon

@wusacon-

quite the reply- we’ll have to agree to disagree- I will never agree with the Bush/Obama bank bailout (no bank too big to save)- I have more sympathy for the common man- unfortunately- the bank bailout contrary to your impression- was in my mind- not for the benefit of joe taxpayer but at the expense of joe taxpayer.

You’re putting up a straw man here, dude.

you may care to peruse: Why There will be no other Bubble to Save us from this 40 Year Financial Bubble: From Manufacturing, Technology, and Financial Services. Real Estate Bubble. Drop in Corporate Tax Receipts.
http://www.mybudget360.com/why-there-will-be-no-other-bubble-to-save-us-from-this-40-year-financial-bubble-from-manufacturing-technology-and-financial-services-real-estate-bubble-drop-in-corporate-tax-receipts/

Contra to your appeal, you might care to wonder why the USGov isn’t aiding Individual self-sufficiency, but, rather, is full-throated in its “Green Shoots”-agitprop..

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/realityzone/UFNtaxrallycartoon.jpg

My own Oct ’08 bailout rant:
http://www.unknownliberal.org/blog/?p=7
(I’m not sure I agree with myself back then. For me, this is a continual learning process. As part of the laity in these matters, I reserve the right to flip-flop.)

…

For psychological reasons, I suspect it’s “better to bail out everyone than bail out no one.”

…

Oh, as an example of the effect of the crisis on people’s lives, consider the reports of letters of credit being denied and affecting agricultural trade. If confidence were not restored at least somewhat, what could have happened?

If I may nitpick…

They could allow freefall/chaos or inhibit it. Yes, it drags it out. But, the intensity of what might or, IMHO, would otherwise happen is too much of a risk.

And what is that? Well, let’s imagine what happens when a company can’t make payroll because its bank fails. What happens to its employees, their landlords, their local grocers, their CRE, their suppliers, etc., etc.? What happens when this doesn’t affect just one company but most companies and all the big banks? At a certain point, it’s impossible to escape the carnage, like avoiding a huge pileup on the interstate when everyone else was driving reckless around you but the “prudent” people weren’t. Those “prudent” people would be hit, injured and killed, too. (If they had been *really* prudent, they would’ve been complaining from ?-2005 about the reckless driving conditions, before the accident became inevitable.) There would’ve been a complete run on the whole credit system. Whether you like it or not and whether you contributed it or not, even the “prudent” would suffer.

If no one tried to inject some confidence back into the system, I believe we would go straight back to the 1930′s. Nearly every company or person in America would go bankrupt except the Amish and the short sellers. And even the short sellers might go bankrupt for lack of a solvent counterparty. (E.g., witness CHK’s hedges lost in the LEH bankruptcy. Imagine that over and over.) We would see cascading failures that would overwhelm the bankruptcy judges/attorneys/system for years. It would be worse than the 1930′s because back then credit wasn’t so prevalent. If not arrested, the size of all the credit writedowns would catch 99% of Americans off guard — everybody but the homeless and people in jail. It would be worse again than the 1930′s because so few of us own land or means of subsistence farming.

Folks, I read criticism after criticism every day on this blog and every other one I visit. (Don’t mean to single out anyone’s statement, because most of you are in consensus and I’m sorta not.) I sympathize with the — well-informed — criticism and enjoy reading it. And I would’ve liked a different way to reliquify credit than to give it to the shmucks who started this and the bondholders or other “investors” who aided and abetted Wall Street’s “Credit Counterfeiting Scam” (introduction of “Bad Money” into the global credit/debt/money system — that’s “all” it was). But, the first step in any emergency is to try to stabilize the situation. The administrations have probably been taking what was the easiest, first steps to do that.

Will we figure out a way to unwind the 350% debt/GDP ratio built up over 30 years? (Like Steve Barry said, the hole BB is trying to fill is huge. I think the debt is unservicable without irrevocable printing.) If we drag this emergency out long enough, maybe some solutions will become more popular. Maybe it’s as “simple” as QE (and making it irrevocable). Maybe mutual debt forgiveness at the national level. Maybe something else. (Actually, I think something else dramatic will happen, such that repayment of debt becomes an “academic” exercise. But, that would take a lot more explanation, possibly.)

…

>> dude – people survive- it’s not a carpet bombing of Dresden we’re talking about

Ahab, as for people’s lives being at stake, I believe they are. If the situation deteriorated faster and deeper, would we see more tent cities? If we were to “let the chips fall where they may”, I imagine the number of Hoovervilles would grow and grow. What kind of health care do people living in tents receive? What kind of food do they eat and water do they drink? What about hygiene? Does psychology have adverse effect on health? How many will turn to crime, leading to further unproductive uses of people’s time? People depend on the economy — on trading with each other — to survive or thrive. No, it’s not the carpet bombing of Dresden. But, I don’t think that the carpet-bombing of Dresden is the threshold for deciding to act.

I expect we’ll see more Hoovervilles anyway. But, a slower rate of contraction gives people more time to make adjustments and avoid that level of adversity.

…

Also, more tangentially, this statement:
>> I have no sympathy for people that make poor decisions-
might “work for me” if everyone started off with equal opportunity and were continually supplied with equal information. But, we’re not. In a world where people must specialize in some areas in order to provide value to others (via the economy), people are forced to forgo becoming experts in other areas. Structurally, it’s just not a level playing field. So, I do have sympathy for people who make mistakes. (Humans aren’t perfect, okay?) A society that lacks sympathy for “losers” is not one I would wish to live in. I prefer a society where people try to help other people (as long as those people try to help themselves or just plain can’t).

>> people are in charge of their own destiny

Do you believe randomness plays no role? Maybe you do or don’t. But, it seems you downplay it, at the very least. I personally consider it an admirable goal for society to try to smooth out the effects of randomness. No, not completely. But, to some kind of “humane” extent, obviously agreed by consensus. (For now, I’m not in consensus.)

http://marketsci.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/exploring-multi-day-stock-market-runs/