Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Take your medicine??

The argument for letting us eat cake is beginning to take shape vs. the depressing but quite possibly true assertion that $1 trillion aint going to cut it or even come close.

The primary weakness in the "let things run their due course" argument it seems to me is that it is entirely theoretical and never attempts to factor in the back side social costs of massive unemployment or foreclosures.  In fact the right barely acknowledges that these costs might exist.  Deficits?  Clearly immoral.   Standing idly by and not intervening to offset the impact of economic disaster?   Well, that's Free Market America.  Why do you hate America?

So far this week we've had +50,000 layoffs announced in one day and before Friday comes we could be well above +70,000 layoffs for the week with the worst of the worst still ahead of us in all likelihood as labor is a lagging indicator.   Lets not pretend that there are no costs or moral consequence in those numbers.  Rather lets look for balance.

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