What a wonderful display of ignorance on Morning Joe this morning. All talking heads admitting little understanding about banks and how someone should explain it all, please. Oh, how all of them were tricked and did not see the crisis coming (while reporting for years on proper power tie colors).
Little is required other than some research. Then some further digging. And there were plenty of people who saw the crisis coming.
This is hardly surprising. As Americans, we have an amazing ability to fail to take action, in the face of overwhelming evidence that it should be taken, until an absolute catastrophe strikes.
The list goes on for 233 years, but the biggest that come to mind in recent history are Katrina and September 11th. We might not have been able to prevent either of those disasters, but if we had done something, rather than nothing, we might have minimized our losses.
Now we are facing the consequences of doing nothing for several years when every rational economist predicted this very situation. So here we are.
Another looming problem is the likely eruption of Mt. Rainier, near Seattle. Vulcanologists have been predicting for several years that if it happens, the population of Seattle will not be able to escape the pyroclastic flow in time, and huge numbers will be killed. Unfortunately, we will more than likely wait until they are dead to wonder why we didn’t move them or come up with sound evacuation procedures in advance. And then we’ll blame FEMA for being unable to rapidly extract a huge number of people (say 250,000) in a day, rightly or wrongly.
I for one can definitely wait to see what’s next, because I’m sure we’ll never learn our lesson.
I remember the 2008 republican debates when Ron Paul talked about the looming economic disaster. The other candidates on the stage and even the FOX news debate moderators laughed hysterically and labeled him a crackpot.
He knew it was coming because he studied economics. He also pinpointed many of the reasons we are in this mess. As we are finding out now, it is difficult to maintain an overseas military presence(Korea and The Persian Gulf, for example), fight wars in two countries, and keep our country economically stable.