First!

Dear Nouriel,It has been my experience in 70 years of life that it is all about Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later. There is no free lunch as you have noted.So the politicians have voted to dribble the ordeal of the apocalypse down the road for as long as possible instead of paying the piper for the mistakes in the system.Further the economic model is severely flawed as it is obvious that it is not sustainable in resources or is it sustainable via the endless shitting in our own nest via pollution and driving other species extinct.Could you get serious and look ahead seven generations like the Native Americans and other indigenous peoples always did when planning moves that could effect their future outcome and give us a heads up about what such a future might look like? Or are you only a day trader?

Your comments are Economics 101. I fear your pessimism about the Congress is so well warranted that it suggests a very bad outcome for our country.Reading David Brooks’ op-ed in the Times today, it seems our only audacious hope is an Obama decision to fight the partisanship in the Congress with such force and vehemence as to make the 2010 mid-term elections a referendum on “kicking the bastards out!”