Re: I smell a witchunt...

jtucker — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:50:42 GMT

Mencken wrote that American political history is nothing but " the discovery, chase, and scotching of bugaboos."

This tendency to personify every negative development in national life will culminate the usual witch burnings, no question.

Re: I smell a witchunt...

Kakugo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:50:47 GMT

It depends pretty much on how grave the crisis will be. If the system will answer to the immense liquidity infusions and additional regulations (let's not rule that out... I am not talking about the system working but simply about postponing problems) and we will get away with just slightly higher taxes, a bit more debt or a slightly higher than usual inflation, there will be perhaps a few high-visibility legal actions which will capture attention for a few days before becoming "boring" and being confined to the legal news.

On the other hand if we will have hyperinflation, a massive reduction in lifestyle for ample strata of the population, whole economies grinding to an halt and, what's more important, declining income from taxation (meaning less substantial slices of pie for all the ones involved), the witchunt will be on. Let's not forget how the present political climate is filled with hatred and how able politicians are to blame others or even the victims for their own shortcomings. And let's not forget that people cannot come to terms with the fact that they bear a sizeable chunck of responsability for allowing themselves to be lulled into a sense of security by empty promises (and here I really mean empty since they were backed by nothing more than thin air) and snake-oil remedies: it's much easier to blame the Arabs, the Chinese, the speculators... perhaps we will see a few more trials involving "capitalist spies" and "bourgeoise saboteurs".

Re: I smell a witchunt...

Knight_of_BAAWA — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:41:40 GMT

Perhaps the Lubyanka needs to be moved from Moscow to DC.

I smell a witchunt...

eliotn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:57:14 GMT

... when CNN throws up the names of 10 people who supposedly "created the crisis" with deregulation.

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I smell a witchunt...