As winter rolls in and the season of office parties fades into the season of empty offices, it is time to pause and take stock. It is hard to imagine that we will be looking back on 2009 as the good old days any time soon, but things could certainly have been worse.
The end of 2009 also marks, more or less, the end of the first year of this blog. So it makes sense to review the year by reviewing the year in the blog. In the next few posts I will be highlighting a few general themes that emerged as the year went on. Today it is the most obvious of topics, The Great Recession.
What set off the GR was best discussed here at Bad Money Advice in a book review I wrote (in two parts) of the probably now forgotten The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It. I meant to do more book reviews when I started this blog.
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Earlier this week I stumbled across a surprisingly on-target quote about what got us into this economic mess from, of all people, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
The failures that led to this financial crisis were many. Banks and investors took on large risks, risks they did not understand. Washington allowed those risks to build up unchecked. And in communities across the country, Americans borrowed too much in part because they did not understand how to save prudently, how to borrow responsibly, and they did not understand fully that pension values and house prices, equity prices will not always rise.
It’s not a perfect explanation. I wouldn’t make the general statement that banks and investors didn’t understand the risks they were taking. Some didn’t, but many understood quite well. And I think Washington was more than a passive observer of the whole mess.
But the blame laid at the feet of Wall Street and the government is mostly pro forma here. What Geithner is saying is that, as it turns out, a widespread lack of financial acumen amongst ordinary folks was at least as damaging as the foolishness amongst the bankers and bureaucrats. In the immortal words of Pogo "We have met the enemy and he is us."
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In yet another sign that the Great Recession is receding, earnest discussion has begun in the punditocracy on long-term cures for our nation’s home mortgage system, particularly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Remember them?)
I’m not sure if anything at all will come of this. It’s not clear that Congress has enough gas left in the tank to finish with healthcare, never mind rewiring the mortgage business. If I had to bet money I would say that this window of opportunity, in which there is consensus that something needs fixing, will close without much of anything changing.
But it’s inspired some rare discussion of that great American institution, the thirty year fixed rate mortgage. And it really is a uniquely American institution. Except for Denmark, which has a very peculiar system dating to the Eighteenth Century, only in America do consumers think that borrowing on thirty year fixed rates is normal.
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I have managed to go since August 20th without mentioning Brett Arends of the Wall Street Journal. It hasn’t been easy, but for 59 posts I have stayed on the wagon. Until now. Arends’ Wednesday column was just too strong a temptation. It had the siren-call title of "Are Your U.S. Treasury Bonds Safe?" How am I supposed to ignore that? I 
am only human.
Needless to say, the column lacked a yes/no answer to its headline. Sure, "Standard financial theory defines "the risk-free rate of return" on money as the rate of return you can earn on Treasurys" but this time is different: the government is now in the control of politicians who like to spend money and don’t like to raise taxes.
But as the U.S. government piles borrowing atop more borrowing, it begs a financial question that is not utterly ridiculous: Are your U.S. Treasury bonds safe?
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There is a pretty obvious reason why buying lottery tickets is a bad idea. You will lose money. The odds are usually just awful. Casino gambling is, in comparison, a comparatively sound investment.
And, of course, casino gambling is not a wise thing to do with your savings. You would have to be off the deep end of "positive thinking" to believe anything other than it was, for some, an amusing way to waste money.
That objection to gambling, and lotteries, is today so pervasive that we have all but forgotten another traditional objection. A hundred years ago, at least as common as the argument that you would probably lose was the one that you might win. Back in the almost forgotten era when gambling of all kinds was illegal throughout the country, it was argued that gambling undermined the work ethic, allowing some to become rich without appropriate effort. And that was immoral.
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The end of 2009 also marks, more or less, the end of the first year of this blog. So it makes sense to review the year by reviewing the year in the blog. In the next few posts I will be highlighting a few general themes that emerged as the year went on. Today it is the most obvious of topics, The Great Recession.
Economics, Government, Housing, Media, The Big Picture | Frank Curmudgeon | 
December 21, 2009 2:37 pm | 
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