Disaster Economics

We remember the flap surrounding the origins of the TARP, when former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Jr., told Congresspersons that martial law would have to be declared if the bailout were not quickly passed. If memory serves, words like 'catastrophe' and 'crisis' were bandied about. A dystopian landscape was painted for the poor elected officials, who apparently weren't intelligent enough to seek a second opinion.

Fast forward to today... and we find President Obama making more-or-less the same comments, albeit without the martial law part. Still, suddenly it's just fine to be using the very same phrases that netted Bush flak. The economy is in "a crisis," so the money's got to flow fast and furious to prevent "a catastrophe," says the new President.

"This economy needs support," whines Mr. Bill Gross, or else the United States will enter a "mini depression." By "this economy," we assume that Mr. Gross means his mutual fund portfolio, but we could just be cynical.

All this rhetoric is at once silly, and disturbing. If the Government and big-shot Investorati types manage to keep the citizenry of the United States in a state of reactive fear, any amount of deplorable -- if not downright illegal -- actions will likely be taken. Fear, above all, makes the average person less able to read the fine print... and there will be a lot of fine print in the months ahead.