John Kerry Serving at the Pleasure of His Own Ego

Sen. Kerry is now advocating that President Obama take a good deal of time in deciding whether or not to resource Gen. McChrystal's request for additional troops. McChrystal's analysis of the situation on the ground is fully backed by Gen. Petraeus and Adm. Mullen, who are dealing directly with the mission that was given to them by the President this year. Kerry seems to blame the military leadership for being so bold as to request the resources necessary to fill that mission. Morning Edition reported today on Kerry's 'helpful' suggestion to listen to those ready to challenge 'the Generals,' calling the military leadership "... a lot of yes people who are there to serve at the pleasure of the wrong choice."

Besides being thoroughly insulting to the professional military, Kerry's new position is in direct contrast to the one he held up until a couple of months ago. Apparently calling for something, and being responsible for sourcing it, are two very different things to the Senator.

The Problem is Us

The Planet Money segment on yesterday's Morning Edition (NPR) had one of the most succinct, accurate and chilling descriptions of why we're in our current economic mess, and what we'll have to do to fix it. You can read the transcript at the title link, and listen to it here, but I've pasted in the most salient portion of the discussion below.

"That chart is the most striking piece of evidence that I have that what is happening to us is something that goes way beyond toxic assets in banks. It's something that has little to do with the mechanics of mortgage securitization, or ethics on Wall Street, or anything else," Beim says. "It says: The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us."

We have overborrowed, Beim says: "We've been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen."

In other words, the problem the banks are facing is the problem we, as a society, are facing: We all have too much debt. And getting rid of it is going to be painful.

If you want a solution in which those who bear the most guilt for the financial crisis pay the most to fix it, while the innocent don't have to pay anything, that's not going to happen.

It seems that the U.S. economy is way past that point. Americans are going to spend a lot of money. The government may bail out some banks that some people wish it wouldn't. There is no magical solution where the U.S. gets out of this mess without any pain.

While they might disagree on who will bear the brunt of that pain, all the experts interviewed for this report say the longer the U.S. waits, the worse it will be for everyone.

If only we'd all be willing to face the fact that this mess isn't just about corporate greed, poor regulation, too much regulation, or failure to help out the 'little guy.' It's about our national addiction to easy credit, an economy based solely on debt, and our love of spending. Until we come to grips with that, we'll never solve our problems.