Everything was forever until it was no more
Back in the Golden Age of easy credit I’d walk around Britain wondering where all the money was coming from. This abundance of cash was especially baffling in Scotland, where nobody makes anything any more. Who was scoffing down truffles in the fancy restaurants? Who was shelling out a fortune for houses that had been built for miners in the 1930s? Of course, the high priests of money-voodoo insisted that there was nothing to worry about. Then the global economy crashed.
Since then, the high priests have prophesied several resurrections. I distinctly remember some juju men revealing that America’s recession had ended over a year ago, and yet millions of people still cannot find work. Last week, the long-term unemployed had their benefits turned off and then on again as Congress squabbled over how to fund their aid. Meanwhile, over in Europe the proud Irish have become supplicants seeking financial relief packages. And yet I recall that a year ago, following the Greek meltdown, the juju men performed some ritualistic “stress tests” on the banks and declared that the gods would be merciful. But now these same juju men fear that Spain and Portugal might join Ireland and Greece in the outer darkness.
I’m no economist. Nor are most economists, who, like the rest of us, project their desires onto a world indifferent to theory. How bad are things really? Well, I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath, and if John Steinbeck is any guide, our economic woes bear little resemblance to those of the Great Depression. Perhaps we’ve even seen the worst of it.
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Excellent.