We Are So Screwed; Economics Edition, Part II

Here's an analysis of why things are not going to get better anytime soon.

I cannot tell you how much I hope this guy is wrong. I suspect that, if you have children younger than 20 or so, and/or if you have children in the next decade or so, when they grow up, they are going to regard your generation and your parents' generation not as the "greatest generation", but as a massive collection of chowderheads.

There are two major sets of villains here. The first villain is the banks, which designed a system that was guaranteed to fall apart. Reckless practices by the banks brought on the last massive economic meltdown eight decades ago, so here we go again.

Second villain is the Bush Administration and their butt-monkeys in the GOP. Together, they crippled the bankruptcy laws that would give consumers a chance to start over. And Bush has destroyed, between his reckless tax cuts and his even more reckless invasion of Iraq, any ability of the Federal government to do more than hand out band-aids.

Giving people a $600 check to jumpstart the economy is like like trying to jumpstart a Mack truck with a couple AA batteries. If your home has lost so much value that you now owe more on it than you could hope to realize on a sale, $600 might be enough to rent a U-Haul truck to move your stuff out (but maybe not).

We have a president who is completely disengaged from reality and, at a time when we need a leader who is intelligent and engaged in working to solve the nation's problems, we find ourselves with Happy the Incompetent Clown sitting in the Oval Office.