The idea that the stimulus package is akin to the New Deal is bad logic and bad history
By Tim Murphy
Published: February 6, 2009
If Sunday was any indication, the United States will be completely out of money—and cufflinks—sometime in the next six months. Employment agencies broke open their piggy banks to buy prime Super Bowl air time, where they spoke directly to America’s fastest growing demographic: the unemployed. Meanwhile, a previously unknown company called “Cash 4 Gold” (which in addition to being a great name for a rap album, hired MC Hammer to pitch its wares), invited viewers to send in their favorite family heirlooms for a quick cash payout.
But as the economy continues its steady decline toward bartering and petty theft, the last few months have brought about a bull market in the oddest of fields: historical revisionism.
First, in Virginia, curators at Mount Vernon have put a new painting of a younger, less frumpy Martha Washington on display, after forensic analysis revealed that, in her earlier years at least, Martha was actually kind of smoking. While there’s of course nothing wrong with a First Lady who bears a striking resemblance to the Michelin man—as the old portraits depicted her—the new image suggests that General Washington didn’t just marry her for her needlework. --NewsHammer 2/06/2009
Continue reading the Feb 6, 2009 article from the University of Chicago's Chicago Maroon
Alan Gillis Comment on this article in the Chicago Maroon,
06 Feb 2009 12:31
If it's not a New Deal, what is it? Washington without cufflinks? What would Martha say? It's not a Depression yet, because Obama doesn't look that worried. Here's hoping he's right. Wonder what the Real Deal is? Can we actually buy ourselves out of this financial Gold 4 Cash meltdown?
Anyway it's a big story. Where are the big name economists when you need them? Dead. If you've got an in with Austan Goolsbee who's
Obama's money man from the U of Chicago, maybe he could enlighten us? Isn't printing about $2 Trillion in new financial instruments a bit tricky? That's what they've been doing in Zimbabwe.
What we also need is a more aggressive journalism. Fires smolder and when the neighborhood burns down, then the reporters show up for a soundbite like for this crisis. . . .