Thoughts on the Recession

Recessions are no fun. Even if you personally are doing okay, there's a ton of guilt associated with spending when others can't afford their utility bills. This guilt is completely counterproductive, because those who are doing okay have an obligation to keep the economy rolling along, but the guilt is no less real when filtered through this prism.

Here's the thing, though, about the recession: the government is trying to spend its way out of the hole, regardless of the fact that this strategy has never worked in the history of our country. I'm not going to go into the specifics, because they're boring, but I was taught in school that the New Deal got this country out of the Great Depression. That is liberal, revisionist garbage. The New Deal extended the length of the Depression and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it.

The hard truth is that recessions are necessary in a free market system to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. The idea is to weed out businesses who misused their capital or are following unsustainable business practices. It's like a forest fire. Forest rangers often submit the forest to controlled burns in order to clear out the dead undergrowth and allow for new green life. This recession is the forest fire of the financial world, and we would be better off for it, assuming the government doesn't stick its power-grabbing nose in where it doesn't belong.

Oh. Too late.