Policy's Consequences

I first wrote a few years ago about small but noticeable changes in New York City's quality of life, and I speculated that they might mark the reversal of a decades-long trend. For anyone who takes the trains, reads the almost-daily newspaper reports about the latest service cutbacks, or simply walks the streets, this reversal has become obvious. I've lived in or near Manhattan for most of the past 20 years. And while observations like this are of course fuzzy and subjective, I don't ever remember the sort of stark street scenes I've seen recently.

If you live in or close to the city, try a walking tour one night soon. Start around midnight at Broadway and 72nd and head north. Cross over at 96th to Amsterdam, then circle back down to 72nd. Maybe they will still be there: the woman on the church steps with a child on one side and what looked like the rest of her life in a shopping cart on the other. Or the man sleeping under a pay phone with a box of clothes and a puppy. Or the others who -- maybe thankfully, after seeing the child and the puppy -- are alone. In some cases they are steps from wine bars and faux-French cafes still reasonably busy from bailout bonuses and zero interest rate bounty. There is talk of tent sightings in the heavily wooded, lightly patrolled areas of Central Park. And this is a city long known for its strong social safety net; I can only imagine what's happening in other cities and towns around the country.

It's an ongoing disgrace that anyone linked to or responsible for the policies and decisions that led to this human misery and national reversal of fortune is allowed anywhere near a job in DC, much less rewarded with reappointment. This blog has been sympathetic to Obama in the past, mainly with regard to the alternative in November 2008. And it's clear he inherited an economic collapse in progress. But for obstinately retaining Bernanke, Summers and Geithner, a trio the public associates with the failed or unpopular policies of the past -- and in Bernanke's case, the one policymaker aside from Alan Greenspan most responsible for the devastation -- Obama deserves both the increasing blame he's getting for the economy and the widespread skepticism that financial reform will change anything.

William F. Buckley, who became increasingly concerned in his later years about capitalism's unabashed excesses and the threat to the system from within, probably would have used a perfect word to describe this bizarre and infuriating granting of tenure for catastrophic failure -- something like "blasphemous." After doing the Upper West Side loop I can think of some earthlier synonyms.