First of all, if you know any political history at all, the supposed “unprecedented” divisions within the American body politic is absolutely nothing new. It happens all the time. If you think vitriol and hyperbole are something new, check out the Truman presidential years – “Who lost China?”, “Dewey Defeats Truman“, the Korean War, sacking Douglas MacArthur, McCarthyism…
If you want a real example check out the Civil War!
But one good thing may be happening in the background and under the radar as the debt ceiling crisis, the credit downgrade, joblessness and so forth is “boiling on the front burner.” If you lend some credence to the observation that government can no more control and manage the economy than a coach can control the outcome of a sporting event then the abject failure of government to do anything positive for the economy may have a good result. The American people (business and labor alike) may now stop waiting for the government do correct the problem. They now see that is not going to happen. So, instead of sitting on their hands, wallets and ideas hoping the “turn around” will begin with the next government move, slowly but surely folks are figuring out that they need to move forward and start making their own way out of this mess.
To the extent that means individuals start thinking for themselves and quit waiting for “the government” to figure out what happens next, the economy (which after all is the composite of millions of individual decisions every day) may start to improve.
