Ironic, isn't it. Just as families are learning to live within their means, instead of taking out mortgages they can't afford and charging everything on plastic, governments are doing the exact opposite.To wit, Indonesia's new $5-billion round of emergency loans, added on to U.S.' $700-billion TARP program to buy up toxic assets ... or purchase equity stakes in banks ... or whatever they say it's for today.
Not that I have any better suggestions. In fact some government spending may be very necessary, as economists like Nobel laureate Paul Krugman points out in the New York Times, to prevent us all from tipping from a severe recession into a Depression of historic proportions. We're all Keynesians now.
But if this Great Credit Crunch has taught us anything, it's that bad debts have to be repaid eventually, in one way or another. And by borrowing big to pay for past sins, we're sticking our children and grandchildren with the bill. Happy inheritance!
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Former bellboy corners market
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Jakarta garbage becomes designer art
Not just for Somalis anymore
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