Monday.....Miscellaneous.....Mood Swings

Robert J. Samuelson writes on business and economics issues for Newsweek and the Washington Post.  In a recent article that was mostly positive on the economy, Samuelson's main point was that there has to be a fundamental change in America's economy. Where we once borrowed and built, we must now find a new way to acquire the money to grow and the most realistic way would be in exports, but Samuelson poses problems in that area also. He concluded his article with some thoughts that I think need our consideration. The first was public mood swings move the economy and the second was that once we get over our pessimism of the past year, the economy should move forward once again. Indeed, one of the major divisions in our soicety is in mood swings. One side generally thinks that the economy may struggle for a while but it must eventually get better.  The other thinks that catastrophe is ahead or at least teetering as a rock on a cliff.  The mainstream media does everything it can to encourage the former and the alternative news media lays out facts that point to the latter. The DOW has been creeping up and it reached 11,000 today for the first time since 2008. The mood swings on the economy determined the presidential election results of 1992 and those swings also played a big part in 2008. As influential as they are, they have absolutely no power over world events. A mood swing cannot stop a bubble from bursting, nor can it affect hatred in the Middle-East. The government attempts to employ the power of positive thinking, indeed the Newsweek article used the term, to encourage to public to spend as normal, invest and add to growth or at the very least to avoid hoarding. This pop philosophy may help the car salesman but can be destructive if it goes against the facts and can be lethal when foreign policy is built upon it. Kermit the Frog's line was it's not easy being green, well it's also not easy being a purveyor of gloomy tidings. Everyone wants a bright future for their children but there are times when one has to throw everything they have into stopping that which is destined to destroy their futures. This is one of those times an to ignore it, to turn the other way or to just refuse to believe it is to let down the ones we love We definitely  need a mood swing but it's a swing from being nonplussed to determined, from detached to engaged and from gullible to discerning. If your mood these days is one of concern, I encourage you to get Mark R. Levin's book Liberty And Tyranny who quotes C. S. Lewis in Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Read it, underline it for future reference and seriously consider what it is saying, for it pertains to to this nation's future and that of everyone in it.