So, did everybody know that walking-coma Presidential candidate Fred Thompson has got his-self a website? It's true, it's true. And he's been cold creepin' onto the set of Law And Order to smoke cigars and make viral videos for America. Right now, he's got one up on his site where he says he will be "bringing [us] a little holiday cheer," only to add, "Ahh, but not that kind of holiday cheer!" What? I'm confused! What other sorts of holiday cheer are there, old man? Is this the sort of "holiday cheer" that ends with me getting touched in the bathing suit area and a subsequent period I like to call the Season Of The Dark Regrets?
Aye, verily, Thompson's brand of cheer is the sort that talks about what an epic fail the economy is, and how everyone who went out there to spend money on anything, ever, is to blame, and how everyone who's attempting to fix to crisis is even more to blame. In short, your holiday cheer is "Harsh Lessons From Uncle Fred," involving the archly offered news that everyone was dumb to participate in an unrestrained hootenanny of government spending and risky derivatives and subprime borrowing, and, what's more, no good has come from the bailout at all. (Also, they never did catch that anthrax guy! Think about it!) Uhm, let's let Ryan Avent clear his throat:
That the execution of the bail-out has been extremely disappointing says nothing about whether it has accomplished its primary goal -- that is, the prevention of complete financial meltdown. In fact, I think it has accomplished that quite nicely. Something did turn out to be better than nothing.
As Felix Salmon said the other day, we are now in the midst of a plain old, boring economic crisis. That's plenty painful, of course, and it will take plenty of policy action to avert the worst potential bad effects. But it's not an acute financial crisis, of the sort that might have wiped out whole swathes of the banking sector, saddling the government, via FDIC guarantees, with unthinkable costs, while destroying a couple of big international economies and generally sending us directly to deep recession.
Just look at the chart on this page to see the difference between where we were and where we are.
Anyway, if you prefer to face economic realities through Fred Thompson's brand of sarcastic coot-speak, he is there for you, set for life, with nothing better to do than jaw at YouTube at stuff he barely cares about. Nice work if you can get it!
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