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It Will Take Ten Years to Recover

By Henri - Posted on 11 February 2009

Or Why the Frosting Ran off the Cake Left Out in the Rain

We have slaughtered the golden goose one more time. All of those lovely shiny golden eggs are nearly gone and the nest is wet and cold and lonely and dark. The fairy tale of wealth for everyone and homes for free was too good to be true. Now, one more time we are left with the aftermath.

“What is the aftermath dear?” the voice asking that question is echoing inside my head but no one else is here.

After you add up the losses in equity values and add them to the losses in confidence and the losses in hope and dreams and even survivability you have the after math. As Japan has taught us recently the aftermath can go on and on and on for a very long time. The haunting strains of Macarthur Park are filling the background of this bleak vision with sound but no one is there.

No one is going to emerge to save us from ourselves. Maybe it is too much to ask of anyone; to expect of anyone, but this involves everyone now. The Trust Fund Babies are getting the bad news now, along with the working, scratch that, laid-off poor. If you think 9/11 altered lives just watch this whole meltdown taking place and think about the costs. Our generation, the baby boomers, had the party, now the world is waiting for the clean up crew.

We are going to have to pick up the pieces ourselves. We had a lot of fun thrashing our economy. It was just like a stoned out party in the park. Now it’s clean up time. It is time to dry up, sober up and work for a decade or two on the process of building a new sounder economic model. Doesn’t that sound like fun boys and girls?

Maybe the background song should change a bit. We Could Try recycling, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime, but we really didn’t build any railroads or bridges or towers that are still there, did we? It’s hard to remember much with this hellacious hangover!

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