Economics Is Not A Morality Play.

If We Discovered That, You Know, Space Aliens Were Planning To Attack And We Needed A Massive Buildup To Counter The Space Alien Threat And Really Inflation And Budget Deficits Took Secondary Place To That, This Slump Would Be Over In 18 Months. ... There Was A Twilight Zone Episode Like This In Which Scientists Fake An Alien Threat In Order To Achieve World Peace. Well, This Time, We Don't Need It, We Need It In Order To Get Some Fiscal Stimulus.

Bad Ideas Flourish Because They Are In The Interest Of Powerful Groups.

What Saved The Economy, And The New Deal, Was The Enormous Public Works Project Known As World War Ii, Which Finally Provided A Fiscal Stimulus Adequate To The Economy’s Needs.

You Know That Republicans Will Yell About The Evils Of Partisanship Whenever Anyone Tries To Make A Connection Between The Rhetoric Of Beck, Limbaugh, Etc. And The Violence I Fear We’re Going To See In The Months And Years Ahead. But Violent Acts Are What Happen When You Create A Climate Of Hate. And It’s Long Past Time For The Gop’s Leaders To Take A Stand Against The Hate-mongers.

Our Grandfathers Lived In A World Of Largely Self-sufficient, Inward-looking National Economies - But Our Great-great Grandfathers Lived, As We Do, In A World Of Large-scale International Trade And Investment, A World Destroyed By Nationalism.