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Special Report
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bailout
(Page 2 of 2)
Needless to say, Adam's explanation of the economic situation is much more thorough and accessible than Rand's. Academics, the media, and especially the recently unemployed have spent countless man-hours trying to understand the failures of the wizards of Wall Street to identify properly the enormous risks of the subprime market in their heretofore impeccable mathematical models. Adams sums it up in a single sentence: "The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
If only the government had known that encouraging over-leveraged banks to increase subprime lending could not possibly go wrong.
Where Ayn Rand predicts the burgeoning of government in general, Adams delves into frightening specifics. With the nursing of the financial economy entrusted to "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke, who has credibly promised to be reckless with the money supply, one of the few stories in HHGTTG actually set on earth seems particularly relevant.
Arthur Dent discovers, during his time travels, that when the human race first alights on the planet earth, the first finance minister solves the pressing question of what to do to get money by establishing tree leaves as currency (just the kind of expansionary policy that Bernanke would beam majestically on).
But, we have also run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability. Which means that I gather the current going rate has something like three major deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut. So, um, in order to obviate this problem and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on an extensive defoliation campaign, and um, burn down all the forests. I think that's a sensible move don't you?
"Yes, we do," one can imagine the Federal Reserve Board of Governors crying in response about a year from now when inflation spikes so quickly they decide that they have no choice but to burn down the metaphorical forests.
Lastly, Adams captured the defeat of individuality at the hands of the government with far more poignancy than Rand. The reason the main character Arthur Dent is forced to hitchhike the galaxy is that economic planners of the galaxy decide that the Earth must be removed for the stimulus of an interstellar bypass route. And we are shocked at the sticker price when our leaders decide that the market must be sacrificed for a trillion dollars' worth of bypasses, bridges and tunnels.
Adams's illustration is much darker than Rand's because it depicts today's hideousness more faithfully. Adams did, however, leave us with a saving maxim to see these times through, one printed directly on the cover of the eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Don't Panic.
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Alan Brooks| 1.13.09 @ 11:46AM
lets just be blunt:
"if you cant afford a mortgage, please rent instead"
Jeremiah| 1.13.09 @ 12:18PM
It's probably not beyond surmise why it was Republicans who gave us the biggest, least comprehensible, and probably most irresponsible bail-out in history, effectively seizing the banking industry on behalf of the most wealthy men on Wall St.
It's a gruesome, demonic parody of socialism: Marx turned on his head, as it were, in which class war is waged from above and class struggle is turned into a relentless downward pressure landing on the shoulders of the middle class.
Enjoy your revolution, everyone.
L. Ross| 1.13.09 @ 12:34PM
Jeremiah:
Dude, you're a loveable little nutball. Don't ever change.
It was nice to remember a bit about one of the great works in the english language. The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy (later compiled into the The Universe) is a rolicking, fun read. By contrast, Atlas Shrugged is one of the most tedious, painful works I've ever read.
As far as the crisis/panic/depression we are rapidly sliding into, I think its just hysterical that we are spending all this money and bailing out all these companies in an effort at market manipulation. If the government knew how to prevent a depression/recession, we would never have one. This is all just silly.
bfwebster| 1.13.09 @ 12:52PM
Great article. In fact, I was just thinking of Adams (and THHGTTG) the other day as well. In recounting the massive galactic economic collapse caused by the custom luxury planet market (cornered by Magrathea), the radio show says, "And so the system broke down. The Empire collapsed, and a long, sullen silence settled over the galaxy, disturbed only by the pen-scratchings of scholars as they labored into the night over smug little treatises over the value of a planned political economy."
Sadly, I fear that's exactly what we're entering into (with Krugman and Reich leading the way). ..bruce..
Jack Bauer| 1.13.09 @ 1:50PM
trying to understand the failures of the wizards of Wall Street
Shouldn't that be the Lizards of Wall Street?
Bye bye. And thanks for all the fish
Alan Brooks| 1.13.09 @ 3:50PM
Jeremiah,
the difference between us is you , like Commies and libertopians, fear those in power, i fear those whom we have to lock our doors at night to keep out. and the dopes who cant make their mortgage payments. and dopes who hang out in the 'hood and threaten to whup ass.
you think i'm maybe a reactionary, but i'm a cynic who think the masses are fit to roll in the mud and listen to rap music.
i happen to like Obama because he is bourgeois, a successful black. maybe he hasnt done anything but he is no OJ of any sort. being a total cynic i hope i can get away with saying i like Obama, i just dont like blacks.
because they don't care diddly about me.
Alan Brooks| 1.13.09 @ 4:15PM
Jeremiah,
if bailing out the rich keeps the unwashed away from all power
then more power to greedy barons on Wall Street, in Detroit, and everywhere. the rabble don't have power but they do have influence and that is more than they deserve because they were BORN INFERIOR, born to be white trash rednecks and black trash bros 'n' the 'hood. born to curse about whupping a--es in the street and born to smoke maryjewanna in publik housing.
i should have listened to El Rushbo long ago, he was right, a 100 percent tax on the poor should be levied, to wipe out poverty.
then all the funds confiscated from the poor are to be given to such as Leona Helmsly, tax free.
you cant diss me because i'm a misanthrope who likes being called a reactionary who favors as draconian measures as are politically possible, because it is absolutely true, i detest and despise humanity.
Nietzsche was correct, lower humanity is "fertilizer" and i now see all must be done--even soaking the poor as a last resort-- to keep the masses from having any more than the undeserved influence they already possess.
call me a monster, it doesnt matter, as long as you spell the name right.
The Bailout to HELL| 1.13.09 @ 8:10PM
Don't rock the boat it may turn over.
Just read the Book of Daniel, and Revelation, but read it slowly.
America and Israel wants a war and they are going to get it. Obama, or No Bama, people that seek power and get it has had to make a pact with SATAN himself.
frankg| 1.14.09 @ 6:41AM
Er...uh, nice comments everyone, and uh, yeah, just what I was thinking...thanks for all the fish.
Carl Oberg| 1.16.09 @ 12:20PM
Excellent piece, Joseph. You have successfully blended my two favorite subjects: limited government and THHGTTG.
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