How Big is Big?

Been away for a bit, but happy to be back.

It's difficult to conceptualize the enormity of the financial abyss that has engulfed us all. This monstrous maelstrom is nearly incomprehensible in its scope. And we are all being sucked into its ravenous maw, helpless as it churns inexorably toward complete economic annihilation.

Well, maybe not so bad, at least not this week. And helpless? Not with the Bush Administration around (and a compliant Congress)!! More and more freshly minted ga-Billions continue to be air-dropped from B-52 payloads into hemorrhaging financial firms, banks, insurance companies and the like and now, probably, automakers.

It's truly another case of Supply-Side Economics: pour the money on top and hope it trickles down. Too bad about the suckers who are foreclosing, and the small business owners who can't get loans. The problem, of course, is that the Demand-Side is where the money/credit is needed most!!

So whaddaya do? Print up some more ducats and spread it around. By now, the price tag is getting to be substantial. Here is a nice illustration of how our Bailout measures up to previous Big Ticket Government Projects, like World War 2, New Deal, etc. It's most revealing:

More Bailout Comparisons The Big Picture

That's a lot of coin. I think it was P.J. O'Rourke who once described the difference between the Democrats and Republicans. He said that the Republican Party is like Old Testament God and the Democratic Party is like Santa Claus. And everyone knows there is no such thing as Santa. Today, he may need to reconsider this imagery.

So what to do? Recalling an analogy to another Bush debacle, the Iraq war, here is what one commenter suggested:

"It’s a classic zugzwang; there are no good moves, only less bad ones. It seems to me that if we can not succeed in getting out of this liquidity trap then depression becomes something close to inevitable and defaulting on our debts more likely regardless, for citizens and the country as a whole alike; i.e, the dollar will either be worth more in which case debt burden becomes too great or economic growth will be so stagnant that debt can not be supported and even inflation won’t buy our way out, it will just result in a growing number of countries refusing our currency and refusing our assets and debt along with it."

Hoo-Boy, happy Wednesday, Sunshine!!

So how Big is Big? Too big to fail, Too big to care, Too big for our own good... Cars and trucks and homes and clothes and food and schools and payrolls. They're all too big to fail. Can't let 'em, or we sled down that gaping hole even faster than before. Of course, that doesn't mean that much of what we know and take for granted today should remain the same. Huge changes are starting and we probably won't recognize our own society in a couple of decades...


And speaking of Big, how about this inventive clip from perhaps the biggest band in all of Rock-dom: the 23-member Polyphonic Spree:

YouTube - The Polyphonic Spree "Running Away"

And now for the Quote of the Day:
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
-- discredited nutcase and Objectivitst Ayn Rand