Chumps and other such embarressments

Back in the saddle.  Work took it out of me, but I managed to finish the day.  Everything was truly crazy.  My co-workers don't like to do so, so when I was gone, they managed to do as little as possible.   I managed to get half caught up on the work that was ignored while I was home sick.  I should be able to finish the rest by the end of the week and start out fresh next week. 

The real issue that we are going to have to be dealing with in the next ten years is how to tell folks that their most cherished possession isn't worth a hill of beans, let alone the price of admission?

Oh, don't think there aren't folks out there who have done it right.  Locutius and the lovely and talented have a pretty good chance of sailing through their retirement in some damn fine, paid for digs..  Not 100% chance of course, but probably better than anyone else I know.

But he and perhaps our buddy Titus down in SLC are the only ones.  Most everyone else I know is sitting with a living arrangement where they owe more than what their property is worth, and they really, really don't want to find out what they aren't worth in the process of price discovery.

Folks here in the USA are big supporters of free markets.  Except in those cases where it applies to them.   Everyone in the "powers that be" group is trying desperately to try and keep the reality from hitting, because the chances of them surviving the wrath of the chumps who thought they were rich because of a living arrangement will not be pretty to watch.

So I always am amused and surprised when intelligent people such as Stoneleigh and Illargi over at The Automatic Earth go off and come up with the goofy idea of closing out Fanny and Freddy and all the sundry federal programs that are supporting the charade.

Yeah, like that is going to happen.

Look, everyone knows that the shit is going "splat" soon.  Everyone knows it.  Repeat that to yourself twenty times.  Everyone knows it.

But not everyone is willing to go all civil war in the treatment.  Closing down the means of support is like handing a homeowner a leather strap to bite on, giving him a shot of whiskey, and then commencing to saw while the "patient" is being held down.

Of course they are going to try and cushion the fall.  They won't succeed, but Good God, they gotta try.  If they try and fail, folks will be pissed, but will probably handle it OK.  Going civil war on a nation who has been firmly informed that they are part of an "ownership society"and rapidly pauperizing them will be a damn fine reason to start tuning up the pitchforks and trying to source lantern oil.

We have made some horrible choices in our society.  Having Martha Stewart as an icon and beleiving that where you live should make you rich were always recipes for disaster.  But lets please get over the Calvinist crap of punishing the stupid and try to figure out how to rationally get to where need to go (read here:  much poorer) without having a total collapse of what little remains of our culture.