Living Reflections from a Dream

In my never ending quest for understanding and knowledge, I've been reading The Perils of Prosperity 1914 - 1932. The following paragraph stopped me in my tracks:

One can assign no single cause to the crash and the ensuing depression, but much of the blame for both falls on the foolhardy assumption that the special interests of business and the national interest were identical. Management had siphoned off gains in productivity in high profits, while the farmer got less, and the worker, though better off, received wages increases disproportionately small compared to profits. As a result, purchasing power of workers and farmers was not great enough to sustain prosperity. For a while this was partially obscured by the fact that consumers bought goods on installment at a rate faster than their income was expanding, but when the time came that they had to reduce purchases, the cutback in buying sapped the whole economy.

Now... the original edition of this book was published some time in the 1950's long before our current U.S. administration was even a twinkle in anyone's eye and they teach us in school that there are safety triggers now to prevent a full on depression from happening again, but.. I find this terrifying. Why? Because this administration takes much of it's direction from big business and how many people refinanced their houses last year and spend the monthly payment savings? What do you think it is that kept the economy afloat at all? The average household credit card debt is $8,000. The governement is borrowing heavily to sustain it's tax cuts, war and out of control spending. I'm no economist.. but it seems to me that this can't continue indefinetly. We can't keep our economy afloat on debt, government or household. Somethings got to give, folks, and no politican is going to tell you that. You need to think for yourself.

VOTE.

** Update **
I wrote this last night, and in today's NYT, Nicholas Kristof, makes the same point:

Compared with Mr. Bush, John Kerry and most other Democratic presidential candidates are paragons of responsibility — but only compared with Mr. Bush. The reality is that promises by Democrats like Mr. Kerry to start new health care programs, keep some of the tax cuts and restore black ink are nonsense. But it's less nonsense to say 2 + 2 = 5 (Mr. Kerry) than to say 2 + 2 = 22 (Mr. Bush).-----
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