Cartoons

The Lending Tree

The Lending Tree grew from a mere sapling just after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 into a giant monster that blocked out the sun, eventually toppling under its own girth, crushing the borrowed possessions in the home that it shared a lawn with.

The reason I mention 9/11 is that Americatown went into a short and relatively shallow recession right around that fateful day. The start of the slowdown is still being disputed by discredited economists – the ones still employed, that is. Some of them say the economy was already in a recession as the laughing jihadists slammed two jets into our most giant symbols of commerce. Others argue that the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000 sent the economy into a period of negative growth before the planes hit the glass.

This is a silly argument. Who cares how the brief recession started? I say this because it is the response by the Federal Reserve, under former Chairman Alan Greenspan, that matters most. The Fed slashed overnight interest rates to 1 percent – and kept them at that absurdly low level for more than two years. This, along with the extinction of lending standards, comatose regulators, greedy investment bankers, inept politicians and mindless consumers, all helped fuel the massive borrowing binge we’re now paying out the ass for.

The once mighty tree that was a marvel to behold, ended up collapsing on the “owner’s” car and home. As it turns out, it was not an oak, or a redwood, but an insidious Lending Tree. This deviant species survives on loans. Once cut off from credit, it comes crashing down, destroying everything in its path. (I prefer the Credit Shrub – it’s much more manageable, and if it falls over, who cares?)

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© 2008 Splendid Marbles.