Back to the Future. If the Republicans gain control of the Senate and House, we're in for another deep recession. Maybe even a depression with unemployment soaring double what it is today.
How can I say that? Easy. Just read the history books. Back in 1937, the economy was building out of the depression because of FDR's spending progams and work projects like the WPA. That was too much for the Republicans. They revolted and formed the Conservative Coalition -- a mixture of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats.
The Conservative Coalition pushed through a broad set of disastrous economic changes, including balancing the budget and drastically cutting Federal spending and bringing WPA projects to a standstill. The American economy took a sharp downturn. And unemployment jumped from about eight percent to well over 20 percent. It wasn't until the increased spending of World War II that the economy once again rebounded. At the War's end, Federal spending totaled over 41% of the GDP, and the GDP itself grew over 70% during the War, so that represented a huge increase in spending. But guess what, that spending took us out of a depression and made the US a world power.
How many times do the Republicans have to hear the message. When unemployment is high and the economy is in the basement, you increase Federal spending. You don't balance the budget.
President Obama has wisely followed FDR's recovery strategy, and it's now beginning to work. After all, you can't turn around the economic mess of the Bush years in a year or two. Let's not repeat the disaster of 1937. Fortunately, millions of citizens believe this is the correct course for our country to follow. I hope they all get out to vote.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
What Jaun Williams Should Have Said
By now, everybody knows about Juan Williams' dustup with NPR over his Islamic remarks on the Bill O'Reilly show. I listened carefully to his following interview with Diane Rehm, and was surprised to learn that -- as a news analyst -- he didn't explain himself very well.
He said that he was nervous when passengers garbed in Islamic dress boarded a plane. OK, Juan, you're nervous. So what? What's next, what do you think next? He just left that a big blank page. And that was a mistake.
In my own personal experience, I have had similar situations. I feel uncomfortable, or I come up with a disparaging attitude. That's OK. BUT. But then you need to go on and ask yourself if this is a reasonable reaction. Most of the time, when I think about it, I say, no. It's a throwback to my childhood and a father who was very biased against anyone who wasn't white and Protestant.
I've learned that those reactions were built into my autonomic system. I can't get rid of them. I have to live with them, but I don't have to accept them at face value and I don't have to follow them.
Juan did later in his own interview on the O'Reilly show defend Islam, and that's great. But he left a big hole right after his remarks about being nervous on a plane if passengers garbed in Islamic wear boarded.
There was a recent piece in the NY Times that analyzed where these strong, immediate reactions come from. Back a hundred thousand years or more, when we were hunter gatherers, and there wasn't enough food to eat, we learned to instantly spot someone who wasn't part of our own tribe. And in those days, that meant they would either "eat your lunch" or kill you. And as a result, your reaction was either fight or flight.
Now, good old Darwin has taught us, with his ideas about survival of the fitest, that back in those days, the faster you could recognize a "foreigner" the faster you could kill him or run away to hunt and forage another day. And that meant that your tribe would prosper. So we end up with billions of folks on the planet who instantly react against someone not of their tribe, like Juan, sitting in a plane.
That doesn't make the reaction right. It just makes it real, and something we all need to think about and to deal with. When you get one of those cave-man reactions, you need to turn on your brain and think the situation through. Think of Darwin again. Those hunter-gatherers ultimately prospered because they found out how to use their brains -- and that is a far more potent force -- for good, hopefully, than the ax or arrow.
He said that he was nervous when passengers garbed in Islamic dress boarded a plane. OK, Juan, you're nervous. So what? What's next, what do you think next? He just left that a big blank page. And that was a mistake.
In my own personal experience, I have had similar situations. I feel uncomfortable, or I come up with a disparaging attitude. That's OK. BUT. But then you need to go on and ask yourself if this is a reasonable reaction. Most of the time, when I think about it, I say, no. It's a throwback to my childhood and a father who was very biased against anyone who wasn't white and Protestant.
I've learned that those reactions were built into my autonomic system. I can't get rid of them. I have to live with them, but I don't have to accept them at face value and I don't have to follow them.
Juan did later in his own interview on the O'Reilly show defend Islam, and that's great. But he left a big hole right after his remarks about being nervous on a plane if passengers garbed in Islamic wear boarded.
There was a recent piece in the NY Times that analyzed where these strong, immediate reactions come from. Back a hundred thousand years or more, when we were hunter gatherers, and there wasn't enough food to eat, we learned to instantly spot someone who wasn't part of our own tribe. And in those days, that meant they would either "eat your lunch" or kill you. And as a result, your reaction was either fight or flight.
Now, good old Darwin has taught us, with his ideas about survival of the fitest, that back in those days, the faster you could recognize a "foreigner" the faster you could kill him or run away to hunt and forage another day. And that meant that your tribe would prosper. So we end up with billions of folks on the planet who instantly react against someone not of their tribe, like Juan, sitting in a plane.
That doesn't make the reaction right. It just makes it real, and something we all need to think about and to deal with. When you get one of those cave-man reactions, you need to turn on your brain and think the situation through. Think of Darwin again. Those hunter-gatherers ultimately prospered because they found out how to use their brains -- and that is a far more potent force -- for good, hopefully, than the ax or arrow.
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