[Porsche-O-Phile]

The most distressing part of watching this whole mess unfold over the last 6-7 years (and believe me, I've been saying this was going to happen right from the beginning - it's been like watching an imminent train wreck unfold before your eyes and being powerless to stop it) is the realization that people really ARE that stupid. People really ARE stupid enough to be convinced that there's such things as "endless appreciation" and "risk-free lending" and that an $8-an-hour Wal-Mart cashier "deserves" (and really can afford) a half-million dollar house. People really ARE that stupid to think a 600 square foot glorified apartment in a run-down section of the ghetto with leaky plumbing, rats, lead paint and no parking is worth $400,000. People really ARE that stupid to think that stuff like Option-ARMs and I/O, neg-am loans or 105% financing are actually good ideas. It scares the living hell out of me to know there are THAT many people out there that are THAT stupid where they could literally take us right to the brink of bringing down our entire economic system (and still might). Something that has taken literally decades and gajillions of gigawatts of brain power to build up can be reduced to rubble so quickly in the face of such wanton stupidity.

Now... want to know the thought that REALLY scares me? It's the knowledge that even if we can cobble together a solution with financial chewing gum and baling wire this time and hold the housing sector together, it's the knowledge that all those legions of idiots who created this crisis will learn NOTHING and we'll be right back here in a few years (with a much more perilously fragile economy I suspect) with them doing something on an equally-unprecedented scale of stupidity with some OTHER sector. And the next time, our government might not be able to step in and fix it. Or maybe they just plain won't.

This one scares me (it still might end very, very badly). The thought that the next one is out there looming, ready to manifest the stupid of so many millions in a yet-to-be-revealed apparition scares the living hell out of me. If/when that one comes too soon, we will NOT be in a position to contain or stop it.

Way I see it, we're only prolonging the inevitable. The only real "cure" for this is education and instilling REAL conservative, within-your-means ways of thinking for the masses. That will not happen anytime soon.

Or to put it another way - "never underestimate the destructive power of stupid people in large groups". I hate to be a doomsday prophet, but I think if nothing else, this crisis shows just how screwed we are unless somehow we can (and do) change the underlying way of thinking in this country.

And I seriously doubt we can or will.