Silly season got here early.
With the conclusion apparently foregone, given the incredibly bad right track-wrong track numbers, we’re already seeing some Democrats start serious 2009 policy discussions, even while others worry about how much worse 2008 might get.
The answer is, much worse. As with Texas a generation ago, America is about to lose its banks, with foreign operators coming in to take over. We are about to lose our financial sovereignty.
This will make it harder than ever to get America back on its feet after the coming recession. In the past, you just reflated the economy by pushing out new money. With no one wanting the new money, with the dollar already tanking before the recession starts, this solution becomes ridiculous, just as it has long been ridiculous throughout Latin America.
When Brazil or Argentina lets the books go out of balance, the currency is no get-out-of-jail-free card. The answer recommended by American bankers is to link their currency to ours, to fix an exchange rate which will enforce fiscal discipline. This delivers short-term stability, while drastically lowering local living standards, and in the long run it’s asinine. I can’t wait to read the Heritage Foundation press release first time someone suggests we tie the dollar to the Euro.
That’s not the half of it. The polar ice melt is accelerating. Last year was the second-warmest on record,
and all but one year this decade has been among the 10 hottest. The
climate won’t sit around waiting for us to get our auto companies and
oil companies on-board before frying our collective ass.
The election, in other words, is just the start of a change process
which will leave the world of 2015 looking nothing like the one out
your window right now. We will still be playing catch-up then, no
matter how fast we start running in November.
And this goes for you, too, China. And for you, too India.
When it comes to the global climate crisis, these are the good old days.
