re: #504 lawhawk

News is reinforcing when it comes in waves. Right now, the bad news comes in waves. It’s a steady drumbeat of bad news - US debt, Eurozone debt crisis spreading/worries about defaults, bad reports one after the other.

US Debt isn’t bad news. US debt— or rather, how willing people are to borrow US bonds— shows that people have faith in the fundamental soundness of our ability to pay back that debt.

The problem there is that we’re cutting spending in the middle of a recession, which is godawful stupid.

We’d need a steady stream of good news to bring things around.

Traditionally, we’ll need either lower energy prices (iffy, but quite possible if the dollar goes up and the Euro goes down), some new industry innovations— iffy, since R&D has fallen hugely in recent years as corporations focus more on stupid financial instruments than looking towards the future— or government spending. Government spending, of course, is now being held hostage by the GOP, who are happily using gangster metaphors for themselves now.

Yay.