Misery Loves Company

Well, I've been generously invited by the illustrious owner to be a guest poster here at Conspicuous Musings. I'm certainly not an Economist, nor do I play one on TV, but I am an amateur student of history. And, unfortunately folks, we are living in interesting times, and not in the good "First-Moon-Landing" kind of interesting. The economic crisis that is currently unfolding - which should not be coming as a surprise, to anyone who's been paying attention since last August's liquidity shock - is going to drastically alter the role that government plays in our lives. And, since my political philosophy can be summed up by "leave me alone and stop stealing my money", you can imagine that I do not expect the government to make things better.

Now, while I am no lover of the Democratic Party, the truth is that the Republicans are shared authors of this mess. For every Barney Frank, there's a Ted Stevens. Right now, this is no party of fiscal responsibility in Washington - just two candidates promising to buy us all a pony, paid for with somebody else's money. Asking me "who do you want to win the election" is a little like asking me "would you rather get beat over the head with a pipe wrench, or a nail-studded 2x4?" In fact, since the last thing that the Internet needs is another partisan pie-throwing website, I intend to take the stance that party affiliation is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It's foolish (and a little sickening) to listen to Obama and McCain boasting about steps they're going to take to "fix" the economy, as if it's a malfunctioning water heater in the basement of the White House that Bush is too lazy to fix. The economy is an extremly complex, global network of interactions, with millions of variables, billions of actors, and trillions of transactions, each piece affecting the whole in a non-linear manner. Voting for a politician because he says he can fix the economy is like picking a prom date because he says he's going to make it sunny and 75 degrees on Saturday.

So hopefully, I'll add something of value here, and hopefully in a way that'll make you laugh (and roll your eyes). I'll also try to post useful advice for the future, because that's something I'm trying to find out for myself. Yes, the economy, and our freedoms, are likely to degrade over the next ten to twenty years. But that doesn't mean we should all just passively sulk in our couches and accept the end of Western Civilization. If history is any guide (and I believe it is), a prepared individual will not only survive, but will thrive, in times of crisis. It's the poor saps with their hands in their pockets, waiting for the Government to save them, who are going to get flattened. Remember, in the worst year of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate reached 25%. Which is another way of saying, three out of every four people still had a job.