2008 - We were warned but it did no good. We did not repent.

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I was thinking about the 2008 economic crisis, which I now regard as less of a profound international crisis and more of a warning.

It was a warning that we in the West were spending more than we were producing, that apparent 'economic growth' was an illusory mixture of borrowing and inflation, and we were living off capital not income.  

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What should have happened was a recognition and repentance, followed by reform - first to cut consumption, then to decide whether or how much to increase production.

But 2008 was a warning which has not been heeded.

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There was no recognition, and no repentance - but instead there has been denial, lying and wishful thinking.

Consequently there has been more of the same: corrupt spending; frivolous and harmful consumption, reckless squandering of resources; raids on property and the productive population; mass immigration of economic dependents and continued channelling of resources to economic dependents: in sum, a continued destruction of productivity and all that sustains it.

There has been not just zero but negative significant remedial change since 2008 - whatever were the mechanisms that led to the 2008 crisis are in place and in operation, taking us towards another and inevitably far more severe crisis.

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We were warned, and did nothing. 

But how could it be otherwise?

As a society we utterly lack motivational resources - and lacking these, there is no incentive to recognize reality and take personal responsibility.

(If you already know there is not going to be any effective action - you might as well blind yourself to dangers and live by soothing lies - for as long as possible.)

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We are morally bankrupt, and the 2008 crisis has revealed this bankruptcy.

Instead of recognizing the problem, we lied; instead of doing something helpful, we prevent any helpful responses and amplify the destruction on all fronts.

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The non-response, the anti-response to 2008 reveals that knowledge is irrelevant in a world without motivation.

In a world without motivation, nothing else matters - because motivation is an aspect of courage, without motivation there can be no courage because there is no reason for it; and without courage there can be no virtue.

Nothing motivates but religion, and for us - who lack  it - nothing matters but getting religion; yet nothing seem less likely in the West than repentance of secular Leftism and a Christian revival.

But that is our choice. The consequences will follow.

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