Mainlining money to keep the buzz

If a patient came to a doctor with health problems related to overeating junk food, you'd hardly expect the doc to prescribe more of the same as the way to correct the problem. But that's what the Federal Reserve is doing:

Our economy's heart attack sent the financial markets swooning and even with the infusion of cash mentioned above, flu-like symptoms still exist. But what can one expect given the economy's diet over the last five years which consisted of mainlining "easy money" sugar, and the consumption of mountains of fat (in the form of trillions of dollars of new consumer and corporate borrowing). This risky diet has finally taken its toll on the economy's waistline...

...the Fed swiftly responded as attending physicians, led by the Paulson and Bernanke, imposed an interest rate cut of 3/4 percent. This move was intended to offset a potentially huge sell-off in the stock market, but it indicates the Fed will continue to feast on sugar, and the government will continue to offer a high-fat diet to the feeding-frenzy American consumer in the form of lower interest rates and easy money. Forget about savers; they're not only forgotten but mugged in broad daylight by the Fed and US Treasury as interest rates drop well below the rate of inflation, and the rate of inflation is forced up.

The citizens of our great country experienced an intense sugar rush over the last decade as their waistlines expanded and they ran up very fat personal deficits amounting to over $14 trillion dollars. (It is estimated that $500 billion dollars of that easy money created debt could be in default very soon). Too much sugar, too much fat, a collapsing dollar, and higher inflation can cause an economic heart attack. It happened this week, and you should watch for it to happen again and again.

America is addicted to easy money and mountains of debt. Nearly three-fourths of our economy is based on consumer spending, and as people realize the home equity ATM is tapped out, there's the danger of having to go cold turkey and let the economy go into recession (or withdrawal, to maintain the analogy...) Drug addicts avoid withdrawal by upping the dosage to try for the same high. We're about to do the same economically. The risk of a fatal overdose is just as real.