The Ignorant Investor

Since the decline and fall of American civilization began several months ago, I haven't posted at all. I wasn't in any form of shock. It was something a lot of people I'd been reading over the past couple of years had talked about. The carnage in the banking system was maybe one of the most widely predicted financial events ever to arrive. And what do we get from the government? Warmed over new deal econospeak and calls for massive stimuli to jump start a sick economy. We are told we need emergency measures, the need for which could have easily been avoided with a few policy choices at anytime over the past two decades.

Watching the Obama campaign transition, I was struck at how little Obama wants to break from the past. We get Larry Summers as a formal adviser, Bob Rubin close by someplace, and a guy from the Federal Reserve who is a disciple of both Rubin and Summers as Treasury Secretary. In other words, Obama has decided that all we need is more tricks from Wall Street to get us back on track. It's as though he's decided to ignore the past 20 years of financial history. So my guess is that we are pretty screwed.