WSJ Columnist: The Economy is a shambles because Americans don't say Merry Christmas anymore

[BurtWorm]

Religion seems to have given this guy an escape into a happy world of blissful unreality. Gods and goddesses bless him!


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122714101083742715.html

Mad Max and the Meltdown
How we went from Christmas to crisis.

By DANIEL HENNINGER


...


Amid all these downward-pushing pressures, occurring in plain sight, hardly anyone or anything stepped up to brake the fall. What happened?

The answer echoing through the marble hallways of Congress and Europe's ministries is: regulation failed. In short, throw plaster at cracked walls. Trusting the public sector to protect us from financial catastrophe is a bad idea. When the Social Security and Medicare meltdowns arrive, as precisely foretold by their trustees, will we ask again: What were they thinking?

What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. They are the ballast that stabilizes two better-known Rs from the world of free markets: risk and reward.

Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down. And so we come back to the disappearance of "Merry Christmas."

It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous. That danger flashed red in the fall into subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers, who after all are just people. Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions.

The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines. We are erasing the chalk lines.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. "brake the fall"?????

MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
MERRY CHRISTMAS

There, I have saved my part of the economy.

Next?

[rurallib]

2. good to see that Murdoch has had little influence on the WSJ editorial

outlook.

[Merlot]

3. I stopped reading after "regulation failed"

looks like a bunch of dreck

[Johonny]

4. it seems like the war on christmass starts earlier and earlier

every year

[Billy Burnett]

6. Take No Prisoners!

[BurtWorm]

7. I now say Have a happy holiday for every occasion, secular or religious.

Does that make me a bad American?

:evilfrown:

[foxfeet]

5. Sorry, Bubba, the rest of us didn't like your chalk lines

so we're drawing our own.

[OnionPatch]

8. What a moron.

I'd like to see some stats on what political party all these immoral bankers belong to. :eyes: I'm willing to bet the majority of them were regular church-goers as well.

Just another BS propaganda piece insinuating you have no morals if you don't belong to their religion.

[peekaloo]

9. I attribute it (failing economy)more to people who say "Get any on you?" rather than

"God Bless You " after a sneeze.

:eyes:

[snappyturtle]

10. What regulation? What a twisted spin! Religion keeps players inside

the chalk lines!!! :rofl:

[mrcheerful]

11. Yep thats the real problem people aren't following the tradition

Of saying merry xmas at the stores you shop at. Never mind that tradition didn't start until the great depression when Macy's used xmas to boost sales. Never mind that most of ameica's shoppers are now broke and they over shopped their credit cards. Never mind that the consumers are facing unemployment. Nope the real problem is sales clerks not saying merry xmas and its destroying the economy. How republicon.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. Boy, Is This Stupid!

Most of this is just circular nonsense.

Sheesh!

How does this guy have any job that doesn't require anything other than the ability to move a broom?
The Professor

[moggie]

13. So why didn't the rot start in a more secular nation?

God-soaked America: fucked
Godless Sweden: less fucked
How is that?

[Arugula Latte]

14. Dammit! Why wasn't THIS genius given the Nobel prize for economics instead of Krugman?!

:eyes:

[walldude]

21. Sad part is the guy is a Pulitzer winner.

It's gotten to the point where they just make shit up and see if it sticks.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. That has to be one of the most insanely stupid columns I have EVER read

I cannot believe that it is in the WSJ.

"It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous. That danger flashed red in the fall into subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers, who after all are just people. Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions."

Dereligioning?! Northerners and athiests who vilify Southern evangelicals?! Religion keeps most of the players inside of the chalk lines?!

The reasoning is so flawed and simplistic, I think the author needs an immediate MRI to establish that a stroke did not occur immediately after he wrote the title.

[LeftinOH]

16. "Deck the halls with boughs of FAIL"................n/t

[mrreowwr_kittty]

17. What I like about stuff like this is it's an admission that religion is social control.

No argument that belief in a deity has any value in itself because theres, you know, an actual deity.

[RandomKoolzip]

25. Mmm...good point.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

18. I have to kick this contender for Asininity Hall of Fame.

You don't find stupid of this caliber often.

[yellowcanine]

19. Good candidate for waterboarding until he agrees to quit hating America.

The secularization/commercialization of Christmas is about as American as one can get.

[KamaAina]

20. Uh, ohh-kayy.

Mele Kalikimaka! :P

[depakid]

22. So many delusions, so little time

Henninger is one of those "damn the facts, full speed ahead" ideologues who's turned the WSJ editorial page into a laughing stock....

[RandomKoolzip]

23. Dumbest fuckin' thing I've ever read.

Then again, was it MEANT to be ironic? If it was, then it was a good parody.

[Skidmore]

24. Well, how many of us can't afford the "Merry" or

the "Christmas" for that matter?