Be Fair: Don't Expect Economic Miracles from Our Next President

[Mike03]

I see some posts lamenting the current economic crisis, blaming the (admittedly dipshit) president, and imagining that our next Democratic president is somehow going to be able to fix all of this.

Anyone who believes this is setting his- or herself up for disappointment, I'm sorry to say. We have to be fair and realistic in our expectations of what one human being can accomplish after a decade of flagrant irresponsibility--and there's plenty of it to go around.

There's nothing that either Obama or Clinton can do to change the fact that the U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the world. We are for all intents and purposes bankrupt. This deterioration has been going on for more than five years. Where was everybody? Where was Greenspan when he was decapitating interest rates and encouraging irresponsible lending?

There's no one cause of this disaster.

It's not only irresponsible tax cuts.
It's not only unaffordable, illegal wars.
It's not only irresponsible homebuyers
It's not only irresponsible consumers laying debt they can't afford onto multiple credit cards
It's not only irresponsible mortgage originators, inventing ludicrous instruments such as the Piggy Back mortgage or turning their heads away as their customers lie about their income on the application form
It's not leveraged hedge funds

It's all of these things.

Anyone who consumed knowing that we should or could not responsibly consume must share the blame.

Not everyone, but most of us here in the United States live in relative luxury compared to most of the rest of the world, whether we can accept this or not.

In what other nation could a company like "Sharper Image" rise to prominence? And the reason it's in bankruptcy is because responsible people can no longer justify buying extravagant crap.

There's plenty of blame to go around. Reckless borrowers and spenders need to take responsibility for their complicity in this mess.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Bill Clinton pretty much turned around a shittier mess than this.

However, according to the barackkas he didn't.