Featured Find: Stabilizing into a Crisis

Joe reads Ezra Klein regularly. I read him sometimes. I find him unusually penetrating and accurate but rather boring and irrelevant most of the time (just my opinion); so while I don't hate reading him, I simply consider reading other writers to be better investments of my time. This time is different. This Ezra Klein piece is passionate, it resonates, and I think, it's accurate - it's perhaps one of the best descriptions of our (economic) time I've come across:

But the Dow Jones industrial average isn’t diving because spending has risen, deficits have grown or stimulus policy has changed. It’s diving because of forces Washington can’t control, and in many cases, doesn’t understand very well. How many members of Congress do you think could give a coherent account of what has happened to oil or steel prices over the past three years? Or what’s happening in the euro zone? Or to the yuan?

A dramatic gap has opened between the economy as Washington sees it — and wants to intervene in it — and the economy that exists. Whatever weak recovery we might have hoped for is being hindered by global commodity prices, consumer deleveraging, fears of flagging demand in emerging markets, earthquakes in Asia and much more. Globally, it’s been an almost uninterrupted run of crises and bad luck. Meanwhile, Washington just spent two months arguing over whether it would pay its bills or spark an unnecessary financial crisis. 

The whole article can be read in three minutes. I highly recommend it.