Blow Hard - 2/18/09

The market is not broken. We are. If we have learned anything in the last decade it is that we consume more than we ought, at a rate greater than we can sustain. Yet every time we hit a point of failure the reaction is that we must step in, stem the bleeding and get the market back to the heights from which it fell, as if the recession were the problem and not the inflated sector of the market. Recessions are not bad. Recessions remove what is: inflated and manufactured sectors. They return us to a sustainable and realistic level. Its results may be difficult and trying but it is a necessity and it is a good thing. Common sense would tell you the worst thing we can do is inject back into the market the very thing it just purged.

What we need is to endure this recession, not blow another bubble. Thats not the glamourous option and it may even seem insensitive towards those who are struggling, but since when has the right thing to do been easy? If the problem has been out-of-control lending and rampant debt-spending of the global consumer, how is it then that *encouraging that behavior or the **government continuing that act on behalf of the market, be the solution? It can't. It can only result in building a new bubble, one that will inevitably burst with larger ramifications and be the responsibility of the next generation. With every bailout and stimulus plan we take on massive debt as a nation with the intent to spend at the unsustainable levels the market just rejected.

Right now politicians are doing what they have always done, attempt to stop the bleeding and push it on down the line for the next congress/administration to deal with. They are passing it on, to me...to us. We will have to endure it because they won't. As I write this I am 26 years old, and as such I am a part of the next wave of leadership and more importantly the next core source of consuming power in this country. We, this next generation, will be required to guide this country from wherever the current generation and current leadership leaves off. And right now they are tying their burden around our neck. They are building a chain of events that could create, for us, the greatest economic disaster ever, gift wrapped in national debt.

This is not about party. This is not about talking points. This is a calling out of the Bush/Obama spending sprees that will be due on my generations watch. This is a warning about removing the invaluable lessons learned in failure, and by extension reinforcing the misguided actions that got us where we are. This is a look at what I see has happened and is happening as it affects the next generation. As I've said, if they refuse to own the economic woes, we must. I do not know how many more times we can repackage our debt and our economic bubbles before it all comes crashing down. May God bless them and God bless us because tough decisions need to be made and lived out. Hard times need to be endured through saving money, learning greater responsibility and working hard. Enough turning one social group against another! Enough redistributing success. Stop picking individuals to help (because it comes at the cost of other individuals) and start helping the whole! I, for one, reject the notion that it would be worse for us all if you didn't intervene for the few, because that view dismisses the values of learning from one's mistakes, accepting personal-responsibility, and the fact that the free market is the most non-partisan form of choosing winners and losers.

Please don't read more into this than I've stated. I'm not arguing we do nothing. I am suggesting that enduring the recession and freeing up the market to work more efficiently is the true and lasting solution. Promoting restraint and financial responsibility is a good thing. Allowing entities to fail and requiring people to live with their actions and financial decisions is key. We must learn from this recession and adapt to it. That is what a free market does and that is what makes us the nation with the greatest potential for every citizen. A forced push in the market will come at great cost and a future failure. And doing so will come at a greater cost than money and material gain, it will cost us an ever-increasing measure of freedom.




Paul Wizikowski


*Bush admittedly went against his principles as a conservative to get credit flowing again. He authorized and encouraged the bank bailouts with the intent of encouraging consumers to return to their exhausted spending levels.

**Obama has cited the Keynesian Theory as the source of his economic stimulus plan that essentially argues that when the market is spending less then it could (as seen in a downturn) the government can make up the difference by spending what the free market isn't.