Economic Crisis: Enemy Of The Good

Ace, of Ace of Spades HQ, one of the few blogs I read on everything, thinks conservatives are wrong to oppose the bailout. He is afraid of a New Deal in the aftermath of a modern Great Depression.

Steve Forbes on Michael Medved: "I’ve never been an alarmist…I’ve never seen a situation as dark as it is today...people genuinely don't understand the magnitude of what is before us."

Like I said in the comments: I am not an economic alarmist myself and I get my take from people who aren't economic alarmists.

So when they suddenly become economic alarmists, I'm alarmed.

Incidentally, don't mislead yourselves into thinking I'm unaware that I'm taking an unpopular position and it could cost me traffic, and readers, and therefore salary.

100-1 against. I know this. I know this is a Schiavo-level split, the same sort of split that caused readers to abandon some blogs.

So I do know that I could actually gain traffic and readers by rah-rahing the KILL THE BILL position.

But I can't. Because I honestly think most conservatives are very wrong on this.

And not only are they very wrong, they're very wrong with possibly dire consequences. And not only that, there's the possibility that all faith in capitalism will crater and we'll have three generations of real socialism.

I have to be honest. I cannot be 100% sure, but I'm sure enough that I'll risk losing a lot of readers: We are in trouble. There is a chance that a crisis will not lead to a vicious-circle deleveraging and halt to a lot of economic activity, but the odds that it will seem much greater.

So I'm not taking this position to annoy people. Or because I have money in stocks. I don't own a single stock. And my credit's bad, so, honestly, this kind of doesn't really affect me. I've been on a pure cash personal economy for years.

I'm taking this position because I think it's right.

I can be persuaded that we must do something in order to forestall a far greater socialization of the market in the aftermath of a Modern Great Depression. That's just pragmatic politics.

Whatever plan eventually passes, I maintain my insistence that it be two things: Simple & Targeted. In these instances, where government programs, plans, & policy fits this criterion, government intervention can be effective and, in fact, very successful.

This necessitates that the legislation be simple with a simple mandate.

As the scope of the legislation grows and individual members tack on additional spending initiatives, simple and targeted becomes complex and scattered. It is this type of scenario that will bring the type of unintended consequences to which I have referred in the past.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.