It's interesting how short-sighted many so-called experts are when it comes to understanding the pace and path of forces swirling through the economy.
Even when it was apparent to everyone that the bubble had burst in housing, for example, some forecasters were predicting that municipal finances would not be seriously affected.
Aside from wishful thinking, one reason for the cognitive dissonance appeared to stem from the fact that people were not getting immediate reports from state and local officials that budgets were being wracked by falling revenues and rising costs.
Yet that should not have been a surprise to anyone. There are in-built delays, such as the time it takes to build a house or the grace period allowed for tax receipts to be remitted to authorities, that would postpone the moment of reckoning for months -- or longer.
The same holds true in terms of the state of the overall economy. The optimists seem to be saying that since today's data are not so bad, fears about a serious downturn are overblown.
Financial Armageddon blog frames a post from another blog that takes on a very silly column Peggy Noonan recently published in the Wall Street Journal. I was going to rip the idiocy of that column to shreds, but now that it's been done, it'd seem like Me-Too.
I continue to be amazed at the breadth and depth of absolute stupidity out there in regard to our continuing worldwide financial destruction.
It seems you lot are expecting a movie/TV-like scenario: The stock market crashes and smash-cut to breadlines.
Do any of you understand how disease develops? It doesn't happen overnight. You don't catch a cold and know it within seconds. By the time the symptoms are noticed, you're in the full-blown cold already.
Do you think you wake up one day with cancer? That cancer took months, if not years, to develop to the point where there's a prominent lump or image on a medical scan.
It's incredible, this idiocy: "Show me the misery!" -- as if it was like "Show me the money!"
When it's finally right in your face and your company is closing down and you've lost your job and find out sending out a thousand resumes nets you nothing, then you'll all finally get all a-scared and weepy and Oh Poor Me!
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