Ready for the Shovels

All we can do is marvel, and guffaw, at things so absurd they take our breath away.

In the bubble era people spent too much money they didn’t have on too many things they really didn’t need. Then came the credit crunch. Now, they hallucinate that if they spend even more money they don’t have, on things they hardly even want, they will get what they really need - jobs, growth and inflation. Even respected economists say they believe in miracles. Resources have been made “idle” by the depression, they claim, like strong backs in an unemployment line. Government spending is just putting them to work. By this reasoning, things that were too expensive even in the boom years miraculously become cheap at any price. And things that weren’t worth spending money on in the fat years become miraculously indispensable in the lean ones. It is like a man who didn’t care for caviar when he had a good job; now that he is unemployed, he must have it every night.

They say the stimulus hasn't kicked in yet. Just wait till all that money gets spent they say. In the meantime, Bill Bonner says "duck and cover."