Considering Responsibility

David Fiderer, bless his heart, has his take on the relative responsibility of twenty-five individuals for the current mess, as published in TIME magazine.  here One of the most striking features of current analayses of the meltdown is that no one seems to know the full picture and what happened and why.  Fixing it so far has been ad hoc and piecemeal and tied to ancient arguments about economic and political philosophy.  That’s a good thing.  The mystery to me is that ‘supply-side’/’trickle-down’ is still considered valid economic theory/hypothesis.

Next up: Frank Rich here in a telling discussion of how American culture denies the evidence/facts.  In some ways this is not surprising.  The last eight years have been an exercise in government obfuscation, secrecy and misdirection – manufacturing reality.  I don’t recall a government that has been more interested in its citizens denying the truth.  What we have now is not simply an economic trainwreck: all of our institutions have been hollowed out, eviscerated.  There is no place to place our trust, and insane as it may seem, trust is the currency of our system.  It has fallen away and that will be the test of this government: to restore trust.  I am hopeful that my government will not insult my intelligence.

All of the people who said they were smart (and got paid for being smart) have been revealed as idiots, malfaisants, money/status-obsessed boobs.  They still hold the keys to the kingdom and we learn that they are our only ticket out of this mess.  I am dubious.

No one knows what will work.  And if someone says they do…  But this is a good thing because some things will work, others will not and failure is an excellent predictor of success.  All I ask is a star to steer by.