“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

Irresponsibility and Flirting with Death

Monday, September 29, 2008

So we find that the House of Representatives had defeated the so-called "bail-out" plan. Part of the force behind the defeat is surely the high volume of input to Representatives from constituents. The plan was not popular with the American voter. There were probably also significant ideological considerations for many Representatives.

The consequences of this defeat, if it is not promptly reversed in some fashion, will be visible quite soon. Even as this is written, with the New York Stock Exchange still open for roughly an hour, the famous "Dow-Jones Industrials" index is down roughly 5%, which is a huge drop for a single day.

But the value of stocks is by no means the most serious effect of this defeat. We will probably see, as early as this week, grave credit problems for major American (and other) corporations. Fundamentally, the purpose of the measure was to keep a financial crisis from contaminating industry and even agriculture. Now it appears that this barrier has been broken . We can now expect a very serious and widespread problem. It may well be similar to what happened in 1929, except that it will probably take place faster and be more pervasive.

The various opponents of the "bail-out" gave assorted arguments for their position, but the real reason lies deep inside the human heart - there is a certain dare-devil quality to all of us. We often like to flirt with danger, even with death. How else can one explain phenomena such as dueling (at the moment not popular, but the pendulum has a way of swinging)? We like to test the limits.

Indeed, there may even be, as people see the growing chaos of the World, a secret but powerful lust for annihilation, a courtship of death.

"A natural though corrupt love of the lie," wrote Bacon about four centuries ago. He was right . The real reason for the defeat of the "bail-out" was not rational at all. It was the basest possible perversion, a sickening plunge to death from the heights.

And the end of that plunge is dark, indeed. We shall soon taste it, unless rationality and wisdom can somehow be rescued.

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