Dr. Pangloss Call Your Office

Alert readers of this blog have probably noticed that life is not the fun ship cruise they were led to believe it was...er...we mean that this blog emanates from the Great Lake State. We tell you this by way of background because, you see, today's treatise is on economy, a subject we know hardly anything about, but since that doesn't seem to bother senator McCain, we aren't going to let it bother us either.

Actually it's hard not to notice the economy in a state like Michigan with an unemployment rate of 8.5% because TIGHT FISTED "OH THE PRICE OF GAS IS SO HIGH" WHINNY PRIUS DRIVING, BIRKENSTOCK WEARING, HIPPIE TREE HUGGGERS WON"T GET OUT THERE AND BUY YOU SOME ESCALADES, SOME NAVIGATORS, AND SOME HUMMERS!! BUNCH OF50 MILE PER GALLON SISSIES!!1!!

Sorry. Where we? Oh yeah, the economy. So, we're coming into work today and the voice on the radio tells us that yet another bank has collapsed. Not so good, thinks us. Pretty soon the rest of the country will be growing potatoes in the back yard like we do and wondering what exactly is the nature of the cultural aversion to cat food.

Well, that's not even the worst part because by the time we got to work and started the countdown clock for our first coffee break, we learn that the real news isn't the collapse of Lehman, but the fact that it's likely to pull AIG down with it and if that happens it's Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome for sure.

This can't be good for our retirement portfolio, and by retirement portfolio we mean having to work until six months after we're dead. Pretty soon the number of people out of a job in the rest of the country, plus the number of people losing their homes is going to catch up to Michigan and that could mean a lot of people may lose that neighborly feeling towards one another.

It has been our experience that people wondering where their next meal is coming from, or where they are going to sleep at night are seldom concerned about if the United Way is closing in on its fund raising goal.

Well, all this just goes to show how little we know about economics, right Mr. Luskin?

"It was the worst of times, and it was the worst of times."

I imagine that's what Charles Dickens would conclude about the current condition of the U.S. economy, based on the relentless drumbeat of pessimism in the media and on the campaign trail. In the past two months, this newspaper alone has written no fewer than nine times, in news stories, columns and op-eds, that key elements of the economy are the worst they've been "since the Great Depression."

Now, it's anybody's guess why newspapers like the Washington Post would be writing about the economy like that. No missing white women to write about apparently.

But that doesn't make any of it true. Things today just aren't that bad. Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. None of this, however, is cause for depression.

Yeah. Why you want to go getting all gloomy Gus like those people in Hiroshima when we dropped the bomb. Sure there 140,000 people killed out right and another 200,000 who would die as a result of radiation poisoning and injury. Sure the city was completely leveled for a mile out from the epi-center. But the city enjoys the mild climate provided by its position in the Seto Inland Climate Zone and is sheltered by the Chugoku Mountains in the north and the Shikoku Mountains in the west from the worst of late summer and winter storms and isn't that really what it's all about?

Get some perspective people.

Why, then, does the public appear to agree with the media? A recent Zogby poll shows that 66 percent of likely voters believe that "the entire world is either now locked in a global economic recession or soon will be."

Umm...our guess would be that losing your job and your house has a tendency to skew your outlook somewhat. Especially if you're sick.

Patient zero in this epidemic is the Democratic candidate for president.

Oh man, do we feel stupid. Eight years of deficits, wars, lack of oversight, and general corruption isn't what got us here. Barak Obama is what got us here. This is why we never liked economics.

Even if Obama is right that the foreclosure rate is the worst since the Great Depression, it's spurious to evoke memories of that great national calamity when talking about today -- it's akin to equating a sore throat with stomach cancer. According to the MBA, 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent to some extent, and 2.75 percent are in foreclosure. During the Great Depression, according to Wheelock's research, more than 50 percent of home loans were in default.

Yeah. So statistically you're much better off losing your job and your house today than you were back then, wus.

OK, so here's what you do. The next time Senator Obama comes to your town and starts going all doom and gloom about the economy, you step out of your refrigerator box and shout as loud as you can "Hey, Buddy. I'm doing just fine thank you. Donald Luskin told me so!"