The other thing I've been thinking about is how to prioritize the work of the next administration. If the nation gets extremely poor, like I expect, the administration will have to prioritize. If they are triaging, they should choose to keep the programs that speak directly to things that people fear. There are two components to poverty, austerity and fear. Of those, the real problem is fear.
Austerity means you don't have stuff, even stuff you want. But austerity itself doesn't invoke a given reaction. People experience austerity in all sorts of ways, depending largely on their expectations and the company they keep. Austerity, by itself, is independent of happiness. There are euphoric monks, who chose to own nothing. There are people who live in ostentatious wealth and misery. Once the need for basic food and shelter is met, austerity and happiness have a very loose relationship.
Fear, though. Fear is just terrible. It shapes people, eats their goodness away, makes them permanently smaller, meaner, selfish, violent. And what are people scared of? They're scared for their kids and scared for their health. They're scared of hunger and loss of shelter. I think those are the things that the next president will have to secure. Those things. He should make those things safe and assured for us, and tell us so. The rest can be dealt with, slowly rebuilt, our society contracted and re-knit. We can live within our means or create things until we catch up to the money we spent in the last decade. But it will be a thousand times easier if people are not scared for the very basics, if they believe they will not fall all the way down, if they don't turn on each other.
The experience of a Depression with fear and austerity is very different from one with only austerity. I bitterly resent that we are forced to make choices like this, but the priority for the next administration is very clear. Austerity without fear, '08.