Hard Times Reprised

Room 8 readers might not have appreciated this post when I wrote it last April, but might want to give it close a read now. I don’t think I could explain any better the economic situation we have gotten ourselves into, so I have decided not to try. We are about to have a recession driven by a cultural problem, a psychological need to spend significantly more than we produce. That is a condition that cannot persist forever, and only persisted as long as it did because people were allowed to borrow money they could never pay back. Having the government go deeper into debt for us, now that we are unwilling or unable to do so ourselves, will at best delay the inevitable.  We need to move on to a new set of economic goals, personally and nationally, preferrably to changing our minds about what we value most, necessarily in any event.