Another way.

Whenever he intends to invoke a sense of gravitas, Cartman on South Park says "I am seriously!" Let me start by saying "I am seriously!" about this question: Where does this bailout money come from? I have just read four articles from Krugman on the Left (spend even MORE!) to Ron Paul on the libertarian Right. (Busy work is not the answer!) with a couple in between.

In no case does a writer explain where this money comes from. Krugman does say it is, in essence, printed. But that does not answer my question. The money I am thinking of is not just that green paper I give to the cashier at Safeway, who in turn, gives me peanut butter and coffee creamer. It is what that money represents. (In my case, a value placed on a service I provide in the movie business.) If we can just print the stuff then, I say By God, pack up the SUV we are headed to Kinkos!

Even though the dollar is not pegged to gold - isn't it, by default, pegged to something? Labor? Products? Services? This service is worth this many dollars which, in turn, you may use a part of to purchase this amount of chunky peanut butter...

If we just print the stuff won't it become increasingly less valuable? Uh. Yes. I think.

The printed dollars must be used to create real wealth. Which is a do-able magic trick. But who decides what is valuable? Here I run from Krugman (who I usually agree with) toward the open arms of Ron Paul. Trusting Pelosi's Congress with a trillion dollars is akin to having a newcomers' A.A. meeting at Oktoberfest. If we are going to print that much cash we'd be better off dividing it into neat stacks and handing it out to each person in the country. Some would invest it wisely, some would blow it all at Best Buy on a Saturday afternoon, some would split the difference. In other words, it would be like the 90s. Which post nomination, even Obama agrees were pretty good times.

It is odd being here in my thinking. Given the system as it is constructed now, it seems to me that Obama has to dump the a trillion paper dollars into the economy. I don't like it. But this is where we are. It also has to be controlled from the top. Call it Marxist. It is - a little. But note that unregulated greed combined with an economy based on consumption - and not production - caused this crisis. (The manufacturing base left the U.S. a while ago. This is not a crisis in production of goods. It is an evaporation of conjured wealth.) I simply do not trust the people at the top to spend the money wisely. They almost never do. Whereas in any group at least some people will invest wisely.

Saving this "system", even for a year or two or ten, is a fools errand. In the U.S. we are better off than many places. We got to "middle class" early. So we've done well with an economic model that is usually growing, with allegedly "natural" down business cycles every so often. Except the whole system has become unnatural. Everyone can't become middle class like us. Not because they aren't hard working or smart. They just can't. It is not possible. If every Chinese family had 2 cars and every Indian city had 18 malls each with a food court...well figure it out. Economic models detached from resource reality equal catastrophe and war. Infinite economic growth on a finite planet will not work.

So, after all that, my question might not be - Where does this money come from? It is printed and we've all agreed to its value, at least for now. The real question is - shouldn't we be planning to live another, saner, way?