recovery | Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

In any close basketball game, the last few minutes take just about forever. There are strategic time-outs to regroup and plan, and there are numerous fouls given by the team behind just to get the ball back. An election is no different, and Hurricane Sandy is the timeout needed by Team Obama to ice the win.

But they had the lead going into it. The economic reports coming out this week show the score very clearly, and it’s definitely Obama’s game to lose. As the press starts to bubble how big the lead is and Romney starts to foul out, we can see how this developed very clearly over the long summer – as was noted in Barataria all along.

The real difference between an election and a hoop game is that not many people know how to keep score.

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“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

One of the key features of the time we live in is paralysis. Uncertainty creates risk aversion, since risk is much more difficult to calculate. After a few years living like this and people start to live day to day. It eventually becomes “survival mode” when tomorrow becomes very difficult to imagine. The result is nothing – and that often comes even when one person is calling the shots, let alone a system based on consensus among many.

The evidence is all around us that something unusual is happening. Change is coming faster and in ways that are not often talked about adequately. The economy is not simply recovering the way it has after any other post-war recession. What should we do? FDR had it right – try something and see if it works. If that goes against every instinct you have right now, you’re not alone. But let’s see if we can convince you that there are, in fact, some things that point to very different actions than we’re all used to.

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