I understand, but sometimes solving one problem actually makes another problem worse. And sometimes what people consider to be a problem is actually a good thing if you consider it in the long run, like interest rates.
In all honesty, the credit crunch is a good thing. We are way overleveraged in terms of the credit markets. Things are normalizing to where they should be. Loose credit was one of the reasons why we got into this crisis in the first place.
Really one of the most worrying trends (at least if you have a pre-recession mindset) is that consumer spending is pretty tepid and that consumer saving is going up. In the long run, that could actually be a good thing if we sort of shift over to more of an investment based economy rather than a consumer spending driven economy (which leads to the excessive highs and lows we have seen in the credit markets among other things). Not too mention our past consumer spending habits (with a negative savings rate) were completely unsustainable. In the short run though, it will cause major problems as our economy revolves around consumer spending.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
