Are we caught in a deadlock economy -> deadlock politic downward cycle?

[nyker96]

Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/16/AR2010091606552.html

This trend toward polarization has been developing for some time, aided and abetted by an increasingly fragmented news media and a rising tide of special-interest spending on campaigns and issue advocacy. We've reached a point, however, where a vicious and self-reinforcing political and economic cycle has taken hold - one in which a lack of sustained growth and widely-shared prosperity leads to political polarization, which by paralyzing government leads to even slower growth and even less widely-shared prosperity and yet more polarization.

....

This is the way wealthy nations become poor. There are no vibrant economies without effective political systems, and there are no effective political systems without a vibrant center. A Hatfields-and-McCoys politics produces a Hatfields-and-McCoys economy (it works the other way as well). In the end, there are no winners - except, perhaps, for the Chinese.

And we as voters may just help to accelerate these viscous cycles by swinging back and forth between the parties and their policies, instead of giving them time to work things out. with each iteration of this "new congress" ending up a little bit more polarized and less effective than before to solve problems together. This in turn making us loose more confidence in Washington to solve our problems, and guess what's our response to this disappointment? well, of course, vote them all out, and in with the next new "new congress". setting up for the next disappointment, the next iteration ... down we go, slowly yet surely.

 

[sandorski]

Politics has certainly ended up that way. Economics, too early to tell. It looks that way right now, but that just might be a coincidence.

 

[BoberFett]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8

 

[IndyColtsFan]

There are no vibrant economies without effective political systems, and there are no effective political systems without a vibrant center.

But wait, Craig told me I was bad for being a "centrist." He can't be wrong -- can he?




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