From Ryan Avent, surveying both the weak current economy as well as the spectacular destruction about to be let loose in the near future:
It’s just shocking to think about the dangers that loom and consider the extent to which they’re driven by governmental failures.
And yet, to a large extent, governments are merely responding to the wishes of the public. It’s a simple fact that the average Joe (or Dieter or Emile or Carlotta) believes pretty strongly in folk economics — low inflation, a strong currency, and balanced budgets — and decidedly doesn’t believe in bailing out people who aren’t them. On the latter front, this applies both to Germans who don’t want to bail out Greeks and Americans who don’t want to bail out underwater homeowners.
It’s all perfectly understandable — and about as self-destructive as insisting that we should plant crops by the phase of the moon. Which might be about where we’re headed if we don’t get our act together soon.
