07 September 2010

Debt Deflation

My boss in my last job used to say, "It's the age of capital."

In fact, I think he erred a bit. It has been, for about a generation, The Age of Debt.

But now, the wheels have come off that Age, and we have a new era ahead of us. Here's the best article I've found so far on the subject...

http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WhatBernankeDoesntUnderstandAboutDeflation.pdf

Until we address the issue of debt, I don't think we can get past this economic malaise.  The challenge is that, much like cancer, debt is fatal if left undiagnosed and untreated, or if a well-meaning hack uses Keynesian homeopathy to treat a maglignant tumor.

1 comment:

NWR said...

I like the cancer analogy. I keep hearing about all the ways we can get back to where we were 20 years ago...but that's sort of like shrinking the cancer back to when it wasn't yet fatal. It makes no sense because you know it will only grow again. Yet that seems to be the preferred method of dealing with this debt problem - getting it back to when it wasn't a problem.