Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
He even quotes him at the end.
As John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run we are all dead.”
I realize economic concepts can’t really be debated…we’d just end up vectoring off to see what the ekspurts say, and then becoming horribly confused when we discover that not all of the ekspurts agree on these things.
But I wonder if there is such a thing as a “shot in the arm” for an economy? Can you do something that would be reckless over a longer term, and see some “pump-priming” benefit in a shorter term — then real quick reach over and shut it off?
…tax cuts can be enacted quickly, but they won’t result in much new spending. Government spending would spur the economy sooner, but it’s hard to ramp up — and even harder to shut down.
What are needed are programs that will stem the decline in jobs, boost spending and restore confidence to consumers and business as quickly as possible. In other words, address the short run needs of the economy.
Seems to me short-term benefits are cosmetic, by definition. The American economy has shown a marked tedency to build up “bubbles”…stock market bubbles, housing bubbles, dot-com bubbles. Things that are blossoming in appearance, but in reality, are ultimately revealed to have had massive invisible sinkholes building under them. We don’t like bubbles. But aren’t they the very picture of “address[ing] short run needs”?
Gods & angels, it seems to me, would be perplexed to be watching us right now. We spent the last year hollering “change is comin’, change is comin’!” Now the change is here. Nobody thought the change had anything to do with allowing business, transactions, hiring, manufacturing, contracting…transpire any more easily or quickly. So yeah, the economy’s in the shitter. That’s exactly where we wanted it to be. An economy is people buying stuff and selling stuff, and we’ve sent an unmistakable signal to the folks who are responsible for doing it, that we’re about to put our government in charge of making it a whole lot tougher. We’ve not yet wavered in that approach.
The economy’s doing precisely what we asked it to do. Why, the Gods-n-angels would wonder, are we so unhappy with it? We sent it a signal and it responded, just like a faithful horse, the kind of horse you’d want to keep for a long time. Why’d we tell it to go where we didn’t want it to go?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.