Pursuing praxis

October 29, 2008

We forget the news so quickly…

Filed under: Reading and Books, Political comments

General news item, 2004. "FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate."

Concluding paragraph:

"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

Original article available here.

October 2, 2008

War and Peace? Piece o’ cake…

Filed under: Reading and Books

I just learned, courtesy of Wikipedia, that Atlas Shrugged is longer than both War and Peace and Les Miserables (each, that is, not combined). And to think I’ve read it three times! (And probably a 4th time sometime next year …), and the first time around I read the last third of the book in a day! (A long, cookies an’ water an’ not-much-else, don’t-bother-me, pretend-I’m-not-here, page-turningly glorious day.)

The Profits and Loss (of New Dealers)

Filed under: Reading and Books, Quotes, Political comments

Hat-tip to Noodlefood

The Profits and Loss
By Berton Braley

From New Deal Ditties: or, Running in the Red with Roosevelt, 1936

When "planned economy" first began
It looked like a swell "idea" –
Until we learned it had no plan
And wasn’t economee.

For the taxes rise and the budget’s shot
And the New Deal costs are met
By spending money we haven’t got
For things that we never get.

The Billions roll in mighty stream,
A regular tidal flood,
With the net result that each spending scheme
Bogs down in a sea of mud.

When plans and programs go all to pot
Do the New Deal planners fret?
Why no, they think up a brand new lot
Of schemes to spend what we haven’t got
For things we will never get!

October 1, 2008

The EPA wants to run your life

Filed under: Quotes, Political comments

Seriously. There’s a proposal under consideration, and there’s a narrow window during which comments from the public will be taken. Read here:

http://theobjectivestandard.com/blog/2008/09/urgent-call-to-action-epa-threatens.asp






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