Billmon: Social Surrealism

For weeks I’ve been shying away from writing about Shrub’s Social Security reform obsession – not because I don’t think it’s important or haven’t been following it, but because the whole thing seems so damned unreal.

Surreal might be the better word. I mean, the discussion is rational as long as it’s kept within the framework of the arcane details of federal entitlement policy. But when you pull back and put it in the context of the global financial situation – and the economic train wreck that I think lies just a little further down the tracks – the whole debate starts to seem about as pointless as a bunch of Austro-Hungarian politicians arguing about the future of the Hapsburg monarchy – circa June of 1914.