Fiscalamity is one of those new words I speak about occasionally. It comes from Word Spy, one of my favorite blogs where there is no cover charge for new words. They are welcome and greeted with hospitality by the blogger, Paul McFedries. If you haven't checked it out, this is a good time.
I chose to use fiscalamity today because it represents the dilemma in which I find myself when trying to sort out the fiscal mess we in the USA are experiencing. The word expresses well my situation: I don't have a clue what is going on in the financial crisis. I expressed to you earlier, in another post, that I don't have credible math skills. But this goes beyond.
I consider myself someone who pays pretty good attention to what's happening in the news. I read the NY Times faithfully on a daily basis. I watch credible reporting on cable news. I read voraciously, and it's not all fiction. But I have to admit that this fiscal crisis escapes me. I hear all the words, and I understand most of them. But it's not about the words...it's about the drama of investment and its mistakes that confuse me.
That doesn't even begin to tap the confusion I feel about the proposed solutions. The government's solution of dropping all this money into a struggling banking system seemed like a good idea to me, kind of like priming the old hand pump that stood on the counter next to the sink in my grandmother's kitchen. Occasionally, the pump was "dry" and unable to pull water from the well. By priming it with a pitcher of water, the pump began to function.
I thought I had it. But someplace along the line the process of "priming the pump" fell apart. That's where my understanding began to fall apart, also. If I get the simple explanation, the banks took the money from the government with the understanding that they would begin to act like banks again. But they didn't. Instead, they seem to have gone back to their previously flawed practices, including paying huge salaries and bonuses to their executives. Clearly, that was not the intent of the priming.
So what's happening? Is there any activity to begin offering low-cost loans? Have the big banks begun to distribute money to smaller banks in middle America? We tried to reduce our mortgage payments and were told that it wasn't going to be possible. Why not? I thought that was part of the plan.
My dilemma in this matter qualifies for fiscalamity. It's partly a calamity because of the problems leading up to the crisis. But it seems like it's a calamity because the solution presented is flawed. Has the money from the government been lost? Is it stolen? Can it be found and used?
Am I the only one who is confused, or is there a true fiscalamity in understanding as well as a fiscalamity in finance?
Photo by Mary Altaffer/Associated Press
Definition: http://wordspy.com/words/fiscalamity.asp
No comments:
Post a Comment