Kunstler, uplifting as usual. Or not.
There’s a particular moment known to all Baby Boomers when Wile E. Coyote, in a rapture of over-reaching, has run past the edge of the mesa and, still licking his chops and rubbing his front paws in anticipation of fricasseed roadrunner, discovers that he is suspended in thin air by nothing more than momentum. Grin becomes chagrin. He turns a nauseating shade of green, and drops, whistling, back to earth thousands of feet below, with a distant, dismal, barely audible thud at the end of his journey. We are Wile E. Coyote Nation.
Is there anyone in the known universe who thinks that the US financial system is not fifty feet beyond the edge of the mesa of credibility?
Markets up, as of this writing, on the possibility of a fed bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
But you read the entirety of his post, and see where conservatives (this time George Will) are still pounding the “nation of whiners” business, and you get a sense of where all this is really going.
It seems painfully obvious that conservatives/the Republican Party are saying: Take a look around. See what you got? Deal with it - because that’s the way things are. And if you wind up seeing a drop in living standards; if, as Kunstler suggests, the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac business could cause the bottom to drop completely out of the housing market - and perhaps take your retirement plan along with it - then bear in mind that you’re still better off as an American than you would be in some Third-World country. First world - France, Germany, etc. - they may wind up in better shape than we are, than you are. But show some gratitude for the years of plenty you had before now. And maybe if you hadn’t splurged on a cell phone and TiVo you’d have a couple extra bucks to cushion the fall.
And what that is, really, is an admission that conservatives/Republicans have no idea what to do next; have no answers for the current economic crisis. And so this is why, rather than backpedaling at full speed from the “nation of whiners” comment, we’re going to hear even more of this from Republicans as the economic situation worsens, and as we get closer to election day. It’s all they’ve got.
The real danger, though, is that there aren’t answers. If that’s the case neither party can possibly admit it, and especially not now, not before November. Which brings us back to Kunstler’s chilling closer:
The result, pretty soon into that process, will be social breakdown and political upheaval. Every tattoo freak out there who has been prepping for his own starring role in some kind of comic book armageddon will finally get his chance to shine. Lots of people will get hurt and starve. Property will change hands in a disorderly way. And at the end of this process an American corn-pone Hitler may be waiting to set everything and everyone straight.
The United States of America would embrace that in minute - shouting “freedom” all the way.
