Name:
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
It's an interesting time in our country. I'm not feeling good today so I've been sitting up in bed watching story after story about the economy--oil, food, the auto industry, the housing market, mortgage institutions, banking, the stock market, the value of the dollar. Lyric called this morning and said she was driving past and seeing first-hand the line snaking around the block in front of Indymac Bank, investors desperately trying to withdraw their life savings or the money for next month's rent. And all of us are juggling the dollars and putting more each month in the gasoline column! Most of us have never lived through a time when there was this much uncertainty and concern about the future.
What I'm sensing today as I watch the coverage is that we're on the edge of a nationwide panic. And panic can create an atmosphere where we are likely to take measures that end up producing widespread and devastating unintended consequences. Federal bailouts and quick votes on bills that give support packages to groups and industries who are feeling the current pain threaten to inflict real wounds on our future. New entitlements doled out by the government (read: your tax dollars) may very well imprison our grandchildren, for it's a rare entitlement devised in crisis that was ever revoked or even reduced when the crisis was averted.
If we don't tighten our belts and refuse to take what seem like the easy paths out of this current mess, we will only compound the problems and pass them off, exponentially, to the little guys at the local preschool. I'm afraid that Boomers are all too ready to do this, feeling that we've paid our dues and should be allowed to retire in luxurious comfort while our grandchildren and their grandchildren are left holding the bill.
Why we as Americans feel we're owed $1.50 gas or a low-interest 30 year mortgage on a place we really can't afford will be left to the social historians, but I'm afraid we're going to jeopardize even our current levels of affluence by bailing out everyone who has felt disadvantaged by the downturn. Let's let our government stick to the functions assigned to it by our constitution, and let's give churches and private charities the chance to "bail out" those truly falling through the cracks.
The rest, if history is any measure, will sort itself out.
Granny has spoken ;-)
What I'm sensing today as I watch the coverage is that we're on the edge of a nationwide panic. And panic can create an atmosphere where we are likely to take measures that end up producing widespread and devastating unintended consequences. Federal bailouts and quick votes on bills that give support packages to groups and industries who are feeling the current pain threaten to inflict real wounds on our future. New entitlements doled out by the government (read: your tax dollars) may very well imprison our grandchildren, for it's a rare entitlement devised in crisis that was ever revoked or even reduced when the crisis was averted.
If we don't tighten our belts and refuse to take what seem like the easy paths out of this current mess, we will only compound the problems and pass them off, exponentially, to the little guys at the local preschool. I'm afraid that Boomers are all too ready to do this, feeling that we've paid our dues and should be allowed to retire in luxurious comfort while our grandchildren and their grandchildren are left holding the bill.
Why we as Americans feel we're owed $1.50 gas or a low-interest 30 year mortgage on a place we really can't afford will be left to the social historians, but I'm afraid we're going to jeopardize even our current levels of affluence by bailing out everyone who has felt disadvantaged by the downturn. Let's let our government stick to the functions assigned to it by our constitution, and let's give churches and private charities the chance to "bail out" those truly falling through the cracks.
The rest, if history is any measure, will sort itself out.
Granny has spoken ;-)
Labels: Money, Political Observation, Social Observation
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