The Perils of Ignoring the Past

We can't say that we haven't been warned about the perils of ignoring the past. More than 2,000 years ago, the Roman orator Cato noted that, "there must be a vast fund of stupidity in human nature, or else men would not be caught as they are, a thousand times over, by the same snares . . . while they yet remember their past misfortunes, they go on to court and encourage the causes to what they were owing, and which will again produce them."

The above is John Bogle in the Wall Street Journal January 8, 2009. Mr. Bogle is the founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard Group of Mutual Funds. His newest book, "Enough. True Measures of Money, Business, and Life," was published by Wiley in November.

The Tab for the Current Economic Crisis

Well, the tab is finally coming in for the "economic crisis". So far, the goverment has spent or is planning on spending $8.5 trillion in bailouts and "economic stimulus".



The tab works out to about $142,000 per American household. This is debt, that will have to be repaid at some point in the future. This figure does not include the "evaporation" of wealth that accompanied this "economic crisis".