Recommended: The Case for Economic Doom and Gloom

I'm not by nature a pessimist. In fact I once had a colleague describe me as a "malignant optimist" - and I took that as a compliment. Still, we face extraordinary economic and political difficulties, and it is hard not to take them seriously.

In that regard, I recommend John Juris' article in The New Republic this month: The Case for Economic Doom and Gloom. Juris discusses the work of UCLA economic historian Robert Brenner, who in the introduction to a book he wrote makes the case that we are far from out of trouble yet.

In essence, Brenner argues that our real difficulties lie not in the short-term problems in the financial sector, but in a global, long-term problem of global overcapacity. The world simply has more manufacturing capacity than the world's consumers can absorb, so there simply isn't the option any more for any nation to "grow out" of its economic problems by increasing exports.

I have simplified the argument, and the whole article is well worth reading and thinking about. If his argument is accurate, then the current economic stimulus approaches the politicians seem to favor so much is just (taxpayer) money down the drain in the long run.