America is waking up with a hangover on the front lawn of her house, she doesn't remember all of the party last night but she is starting to see clearly now. Blinking she pulls herself up by the riding tractor (that's not hers) off the jumper cables on the ground that have left a red mark across her stomach. She looks around to see circles of cut grass and what appears to be the shredded remnants of her biology text book. Stumbling only slightly she walks up to the broken front door, she steps over someone she has never met, and picks up some empty bottles: four wine, three beer, and one vodka. She only stops in the kitchen to free her hands of the bottles, shut the refrigerator door, then turns to the bathroom for aspirin because now she has a headache coming on and can feel it will be harsh. So, she thankfully finds a way to the cabinet with the aspirin without stepping in the puke and returns to the kitchen to think for a moment. The thoughts come in quick succession. It must have been one hell of a party. This bra I'm wearing isn't mine. Did Steve make it home alive because he was seriously drunk. How much did this cost me. It's only then that she sees a credit card slip in her name on the floor. "Oh. My. God!"
Yes, it's the morning after and someone will have to have the audacity to state the obvious. It's time to clean up and rethink the way we have been living because right now, the most ardent supporter, the life of the party, the one person that you know that is out partying every Saturday night, right now, she is "shocked" by the consequences.
Greenspan advocates regulation; Hell freezes over
From the Wall Street Journal:
The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made "a mistake" in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."
Yes, lets take a second to snicker at the about face. But don't miss the broader implications. Conservative free market faith has met reality and reality won. The faithful are asking pointed questions about old contradictions. There no way to get around it, the cult is in shambles. Anyone paying attention is leaving the flock.
Take a look at that quote again. Alan Greenspan just said that self-interested individual do not always behave rationally and ethically.
Objectivism holds that reality exists independent from consciousness; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation; that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure, consensual laissez-faire capitalism...
The very man who implemented that Laissez-faire Capitalism now admits a central assumption is false. That is like the Pope saying Jesus was just a mortal man. Crisis of faith does not describe it.
Forget the schadenfreude, this is an opportunity.
The 2006 election found us talking about Social hypocrites inside the conservative fold and the fact that they had been protected. 2007, the Bush administration decided that it could not control Iraq or it's oil, only to continue an occupation to save face. 2008, Wall Street is exposed for dealing in junk bonds Ponzi schemes AAA grade CDSs worth 43 cents on the dollar.
People are looking for answers and they'll be open to new perspectives. How can a country have sustained economic expansion with out painful bubbles? How can a country maintain peace without spending half the anal budget on military and setting up an empire? What role should religion play in government? Has our government really been lying to us? Am I a terrorist if I criticize the government? Am I a socialist if I want the government to regulate markets? We know there will still be faithful that will try to walk it back, saying they just were not conservative enough. I won't work anymore. Can we answer these questions?
Yes we can.