Relax

This week, everyone panicked.

Domestically, shouting heads like Jim Cramer claimed you needed to put a 5-year war chest in the bank. Internationally, markets collapsed and fear reigned. Globally, the world's citizens are interpreting this fiscal panic as the final and fatal sign that life as we know it is about to change.

Deep breath. Is that so bad?

I can't think of a single thing I'd miss about the excesses of the last decade. Home flippers. Hummers. The morbidly obese. Expensive wars. Huge subsidies, corporate welfare, and an irrational flood of earnest consumption that dominated American culture. Global culture, really.

What is so bad about putting money in the bank? What is so bad, really, about consumer credit regressing to the mean? What's so bad about living less largely? There is short-term pain when the consumer economy contracts; jobs continue to be lost and comfortable lives continue to be interrupted by the insistent knocking of Malthus at the door. It sucks. Everybody knows somebody who lost a job or is suffering, or has suffered personally.

But long run, this is a good thing. It's called "Creative Destruction." You knock down a sentimental building and construct something newer and better in its place. You can't fuel an economy on consumer spending and houses made of Chinese plastic forever - and we shouldn't have tried. All along, we knew that it was wrong, but we played along. So let's face the light of day with a little courage, no?