2 Things Concerning the Impending Economic Doom

First of all, I'm inexpressibly happy that our elected men in Washington actually listened to the taxpayers for a change and decided not to use $700 billion in tax money to bail out Wall Street. Good for them. The last thing we need is the government saying "Hey we can print as much money as we need!" In Notes on the Next War, Hemingway wrote, "The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."

Secondly, what does this mean for our way of life? I don't think it's the end of our economy. With the market in such flux, however, we may have to get used to a different standard of living from that which we've come to expect. That would be a good thing. We may have to do without that second car, or our cell phone, or cable tv. We may have to spend more time finding entertainment at home with our families rather than at the movies or at a restaurant. We may see fewer jobs in the service and entertainment markets, and more people actually producing goods. It bears keeping in mind as G.K. Chesterton wrote, "There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants."