Eddie

It’s hard for me to remember what happened in the first half of 2008. It certainly doesn’t help that I don’t blog much anymore. In my mind, 2008 was the year of the crisis. It started in September when Lehman Brothers collapsed, AIG was nationalized, and the equity markets entered a death spiral of frightening speed and volatility.

2008 was truly the year in which we—the American people and the US government—had to do everything right to stave off disaster. In my mind, we failed.

The government failed to curb the housing bubble, failed to soften the subprime implosion, failed to regulate hedge funds and investment banks, failed to see the collapse of Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac foreshadow the larger collapse in September (Lehman, WaMu, Wachovia), and failed to have any credibility with the American people (see 9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina). In the weeks after Lehman/AIG, the government stumbled around, unsure of what to do. The first draft of TARP was a 3-pager by Paulson that effectively said “trust us with $700 billion”.

We, the people, failed to pay heed to the red flags: negative personal savings rate, the home as an ATM, overeagerness to participate in the Ponzi scheme of soaring home prices. We failed to demand better from our government officials. You point to Obama’s victory, but I point to the 46% of voters that voted for McCain/Palin, all the know-nothing Senators and Congressmen, the close Ted Stevens/Mark Begich race even after Stevens was convicted. We failed to demand better from ourselves. Look at our irrational fear of terrorists and all things socialist. Look at how our bigotry drives our foreign and economic policies. Look at our fascination with the superficial: soundbites, tabloids, partisan hacks.

We failed to educate ourselves and each other. I’ve particularly noticed this at work. One of my coworkers is strongly opposed to big-budget infrastructure projects like the recent California high-speed rail and BART to San Jose initiatives. He also voted against gay marriage and he thinks it was in America’s best interests to invade Iraq (though admits the execution was terrible). Obviously, he’s on the wrong side of history on each of those fronts. I’ve tried to convince him otherwise, but he brushed my arguments aside as if he were deaf. It feels insulting for him to be so wrong (on gay marriage and Iraq at least) and not even consider other side.

In conversations at work or among friends, I always feel the need to be polite. I don’t want to offend people that I’m often around. I’m sure you all feel the same way. But after many conversations where people trotted out disrespectful viewpoints or dubious arguments or false statements, I am going to start calling bullshit for what it is.

This isn’t over. We are going to be tested again in 2009. It’s not enough to hope things change for the better; we have to demand better from our government and ourselves.