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Reacting Versus Responding
The Mahablog —
... Obama is more of a responder than a reactor.
However, my understanding is that the real solutions to the crisis will require a bit outlay of money also. My fear is that once we’ve gone through a cycle of reaction, there will be no support for response.
Take George Will. Please. He made an ass of himself on ABC’s “This Week” awhile back,
Having learned nothing, Will is still spreading revisionist history, as are other righties. Paul Krugman continues ...
The greatness of Keynes …
Paul Krugman —
… is illustrated by the trouble people who consider themselves well informed have, to this day, in understanding the basic principles of how a depressed economy works. The key to Keynes’s contribution was his realization that liquidity preference — the desire of individuals to hold liquid monetary assets — can lead to situations in which effective demand isn’t enough to employ all the economy’s resources. When you don’t understand that principle, you end up writing stuff like this : Obama’s “rescue plan for the middle class” includes a tax credit for businesses “for each new ...
The New Deal did not work
Daimnation! —
Read all about it from George Will. Just remember this:
...It did take 25 years, until November 1954, for the Dow to return to the peak it reached in September 1929. So caution is sensible concerning calls for a new New Deal...
And it took a world war finally to lift the US out of the depression. Nice thought, eh? Anyway let's keep some perspective in Canada.
Mark C.
The Daily Grind
Weekly Standard Blog —
Barack and Hillary, together again.
The new New Deal gets whacked again.
The market's death by success.
Hugo Chavez has already lost one referendum for "president-for-life" reforms in Venezuela. Last week, he lost major ground to the opposition. Next step? Call for another "president-for-life" referendum!
Bollywood, it turns out, is as clueless as much of Hollywood when it comes to placing blame for terrorism on terrorists. Except for this actress.
Nine Mumbai ...
Tomgram: Steve Fraser, Empire of Depression
TomDispatch —
... and George Will both thought this was the moment to focus on him. Checking out the headlines you might think that the intervening sixty-four years since his death had simply vanished: (" ...
Obama as Hoover: The Importance of Storytelling
The American Spectator —
... -- simply doesn't exist.
The next four years of opposition for conservatives should and
surely will summon forth an even more sharply formed talk radio,
as well as creative uses of the Internet, video, television,
film, books and simple written composition. One would hope that
someone at Fox News is already at work on a new perspective of
the Great Depression and Hoover and FDR, using smart folks like
writers Amity
Shlaes, Ben
Stein and
George Will, all of whom have been in print the last few days
on the subject.
Unlike ...
Today in The Nation: Time to Rebuild
The Nation: Top Stories —
... earlier this year, "We appear to have forgotten the lessons of history. Time and again an economic boom has followed periods of sustained infrastructure improvement.) Expect to hear more of this line of attack on public spending as conservatives fight tooth and nail to prevent a new New Deal. Here's a version of the argument in a recent Will op-ed : "The assumption is that the New Deal vanquished the Depression. Intelligent, informed people differ about why the Depression lasted so long. But people whose recipe for recovery today is another New Deal should remember that ...
Book Review--The Forgotten Man
A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days —
... , which has become even more relevant than when it was first published. I suppose that I could go ahead and tell you what the thesis of The Forgotten Man is, but I see that George Will has covered the matter succinctly: In "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Amity Shlaes of the Council on Foreign Relations and Bloomberg News argues that government policies, beyond the Federal Reserve's tight money, deepened and prolonged the Depression. The policies included encouraging strong unions and higher wages than lagging productivity justified, on the ...
House Passes Stimulation Bill
Hit & Run —
... Note to Obey: Hoover massively expanded government spending and signed into law a horrible protectionist piece of legislation known as Smoot-Hawley. At the same time, he used the bully pulpit to hector businesses into keeping wages and prices high which only made it harder for a puffed-up economy to go through a painful but transitory adjustment. Given what you just passed and all the anti-China rhetoric coming from the White House, what exactly are you guys planning on doing differently? ...
Herbert Hoover Reincarnated
The Corner on National Review Online —
... , even if only to dismiss them. But hey, never let a Google search get in the way of a good piece of sophistry. Another niggling thing about Rich's column the headline "Herbert Hoover Lives." Hoover's name has been thrown around a lot here in the past few months as a way of smearing the contemporary G.O.P. But which party is acting the most like Hoover now? Two months ago, a far better columnist than Rich pointed out "President Herbert Hoover increased [federal spending] more than 50 percent between 1929 and the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt." And two weeks ago, Ilya ...
