They abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good name are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of love.
– St. Augustine, City of God, Chapter 9
In the chapter of his magnum opus entitled “Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together,” St. Augustine explains that those who have neither sinned themselves nor opposed the evil deeds of the wicked merit the consequences that invariably arise from those evil deeds on the basis of their refusal to interfere with the rampant sin surrounding them. St. Augustine was referring to Christian morality and the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 A.D., but the principle applies equally well to economics and the ongoing financial devastation of the United States.
Karl Denninger makes a tangentially related point at the Market Ticker:
It is a fact, whether we like it or not, that we cannot have and sustain the sort of “economic growth” we have been sold over the last 30 years on an indefinite forward basis, as you cannot continually take on debt at a rate that exceeds productive output – eventually you will default. Instead of facing the truth – a long-term growth rate roughly approximating the growth in population, or about half of what we have allegedly “enjoyed”, we have used debt pyramiding – that is, serial Ponzi schemes, to produce the illusion of dramatically higher economic growth.
There is no evidence that [Ben Bernanke], or anyone in Congress, has yet had their “Come to Jesus” moment with the blunt mathematical facts. Attempting to blow another bubble – which is the inherent path you are attempting to take – risks destruction of our nation’s political system and economic future. There are hard choices to make and economic adjustment to the realities of our debt load and what this portends for economic growth on a forward basis will not be easy. It is, however, both inevitable and necessary. The longer we continue to try to deny the math the worse the ultimate outcome.
Given that both Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke were Republican appointees and that a Republican White House, Senate, and House of Representatives presided over the most inflated period of “the so-called ‘modern era’ of Central Banking”, it defies both reason and history to assume that economic sanity will be provided by Republicans.