Disturbing

I had a little run-in with a true believer in the right wing fear and blame ideology today. It scared me, but not for the reasons the TB would want. Mr. TB warned me that interest rates are headed into middle double digits, that real estate values would plummet much further than they are now, led straight down the drain by Barney Frank, Tim Geithner and all liberals.

His theory goes something like this: Barney Frank and his liberal buddies forced banks to make bad loans to undesirables in the name of helping deadbeats. The deadbeats (being animals) naturally did not pay the loans back. This left lots of bad debt in the hands of the banks, which was then dumped on the government. The government (especially that tax cheat Geithner) is now borrowing more money than can ever be repaid to cover the bad loans and that international credit markets will soon refuse to buy US Treasury debt. As a matter of fact, Geithner is already having problems selling Treasury Notes so his house of cards will fall soon. This will send interest rates through the roof and further damage the credit markets, real estate prices and the flow of money.

I can't make this as scary as it appeared, when I was faced with the wide-eyed, self-assured terror in this man's eyes. He seemed very much like a rational, hard-working man. Still, it is scary to realize that many Americans are walking around with this kind of fear in their heads and their hearts. Scary to think what they might do with this fear.

I'm not afraid that his predictions could turn out to be right, because the logic and facts he believed are just wrong. Almost entirely wrong. A mass of angry, fear-ridden voters can do horrible things to their country and their own interests. That disturbs me.