A tremendously hot August that flirted with record highs is almost history, and with it the tendentious hope some had for a Summer of Recovery. Au revoir. Boasts that emanated from the White House of an imminent reversal of America’s dismal economic predicament (and Democratic political fortunes) were so predictably wide of the mark that the reluctant acknowledgment of such is almost uncontroversial. One must understand that when a president is this out of his depth, what other recourse is there besides breaking out the Blue Goose to disseminate false hope?
A woeful chasm in this country persists and it sets the Best and the Brightest of our venerable institutions diametrically apart from the economic reality on the ground. This Recovery Summer that decidedly wasn’t brings to mind the “green shoots” we heard a bit about in the spring of 2009. Or perhaps more notoriously, reminds us of how wrong the establishment was in its belated discovery of economic recession 2½ years ago. If their epic wrongness continues unabated, words like “expert” may literally have to undergo semantic change. “A person who commands considerable status despite lack of foresight, special knowledge or self-awareness,” is what Webster’s Fourth may read at the turn of the next century.
Optimistic talk of liberal policy wonks—who else is there left to defend this administration?—is given the lie to by NPR a day ago.
Articles like these make pearl-clutchers out of us all:
[I]n light of the financial crisis and Fannie and Freddie's near-collapse, policy leaders are also rethinking the government's role — and many Americans are starting to question whether homeownership is the only path to the American Dream.
Fannie and Freddie function by buying, bundling and then stamping a government guarantee on mortgages. Then they sell them to investors. It keeps the banks happy because it keeps capital flowing, and it keeps consumers happy because it makes low, fixed-rate mortgages possible.
In a related occurrence, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, finally lent his lisp to an astonishing truism: “Not everybody can or should be a homeowner,” the congressman informs us, summoning the authority of a public official oblivious to how tragically late he is.
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