"A total collapse is a possibility, a collapse of everything ..."

Pat Lang Commenting on Krugman's ..in SST, here

"The abyss seems to have noticed us. I watch too much 24/7 news, particularly the business channels. I have it running in the background while I work. After a while a cumulative impression grows that Krugman is right and that we do stand on the edge of the abyss looking down into eternity. Rothko painted the feeling in that scene. Actually, he painted it over and over again until it killed him.

A total collapse is a possibility, a collapse of everything; the economy, the social order, government authority. How high does unemployment have to rise in a country full of people raised to believe in their "right" to instant gratification before the restraints that protect the "rights" of wallstreeters to their undeserved bonuses seem trivial things?

The Republicans do not want to spend money uselessly? They may wish soon that the money they saved would buy something, anything. I lived in occupied Germany as a child. Our father was one of the occupiers. I remember the Germans when they had wheelbarrows full of Reichsmarks. Only the intervention of the victors revived their fortunes. Who will revive ours?

I am not sure that President Obama's stimulus package will do what is hoped. The idea seems a kind of half-assed Keynesian notion that dumping a lot of money into the economy will jump start the patient. The image of Barack Obama with the paddles in his hands is distracting. I surely do hope that will work. If it does not, then we should all look to our situations."