Common Mon Econ

 Since the crash of ’08, I have generally thought of that financial downfall as something like the crash of 1929.

But we do know that the crash of ’29 was actually far worse in its actual effects than the subprime-mind debacle of 2008. 

And, being realistic, as a 70-year-old baby boomer I must admit that we have generally had a smooth ride, except for the Vietnam disaster. 

Looking back on the  history of my parents’ generation . . .what Tom Brokaw called the “greatest generation” because they recovered from the Depression strongly enough to rise up in mighty armor and drive the damned nazis back into their holes. . . I must admit  that the victories they accomplished over the Depression and the  War were far more dangerous than the slings and arrows of outrageous misconception that we spoiled boomers had to endure.

But we did have to suffer through the crash of 2008. And that seemed like quite a destructive big deal at the time because the Federal Reserve and the US Congress had to bail out wallstreet from their outrageous misfortunes of MBS, CDO and derivative malicious malfunctions.

But as the dust settled in 2009ff, we crawled back into a semblance of economic normalcy, a brave new world of financial wizardry. And in the midst of our creeping back to a stready-stream, negative-interest rates semblance of normalcy, I was reading online mucho contrarian opinionation about how the Fed was devaluing our precious currency in such a way that we would never recover.

And it did seem, come to think of it, that for the last two decade or so it’s just the speculators on wallstreet shooting craps with corporate buybacks and mechanized HFT money machines cranking out their lala land profits, who have made any real dough. 

Meanwhile, the advocates for traditional economics were predicting the downfall of the western world or some such disaster while their nemeses the keynesian tinkerers at the Fed and their kissin’ cousins, the Davos crowd and the EEC were whirlygigging up their magic money cloud of electrons swirling ‘round and ‘round to project the dream world of everything’s coming up roses and its all gonna work out and blah blah . . .

And whereas initially I was so skeptical about the value of money, and asking myself what is it—just what is it really—that really has value? Is it gold, or is it Dutch tulips or south-sea island froth or is it Iowa corn or California cabbage or a Cayman Island bank account  or a Swiss chard or credit card or a wild card or what? Just what is that has real value? Fort Knox? a doctorate from the School of Hard Knox, a bank account with a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name?

But just today I figured it out.

Yes today, in the midst of this most recent wave of federal deficit spending and Fed/Treasury ponzi-pushing wizardry of electrons whirring and purring to reassure us that yes, Virginia, there is free money out there, and a free lunch, which everybody thought was just a fairy tale but it turns out to be true and all we have to do is keep our nose to the grindstone and our pedal to the metal and it’ll all work out. 

No worries!

No need to worry our pretty little Keynesian heads about money. Forget about the Moses von Mises Austrian school and the Beatle-blustering fool on the hill with his head in the Cloud and the trumpish man with a thousand voices talking perfectly loud.

It’ll all work out! It’s just electrons flowing around the world, propelled by the swipe of every credit card and every  slickery smart-phone scheme. As long as we all keep spending, the perpetual motion machine will keep whirring along and the magical mystery tour will keep us entertained with net-fixed patches and the amazing Amacon con and hooloo voodoo and what’s it to you?

No worries!

Well that’s my Common Man Econ musing for the day. As Uncle Walter used to say, that’s the way it is, June 1, 2021. Wish he were here!

To conclude, let's raise our aspirations for a moment; we'll  have a listen at the melodic opus that America’s greatest orchestrician offered orchestrally to sanctify the plight of of us Common Man meanderers who wander through this marvelous modern money wonderland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCpG23aBNMw

Glass half-Full