There was a congressman, during the depression, who argued that the government should spend the money required for economic recovery regardless of the fact that the experts said “there’s no money.” He said, rightly, that if there were a war, they find the money somewhere. And of course, that’s just what happened.
I’ve been thinking about that.
You and I just saw the government create $750 billion basically out of thin air, in order to assure that the banking system would survive, or in order to restore liquidity to international markets, or to avoid another Great Depression, or to pay off political allies, or to continue the ongoing looting of the American economy that has been rolling merrily along since Ronald Reagan. Choose one or more answers.
For whatever reason, when the government decided it needed an additional $750 billion for reasons that seem sufficient to itself, it — how shall we say it? — it “found” the 750 billion.
The flutter of their wings….
Don’t know the name of the woman who wrote this, and don’t even know if it’s true, but I do know that the underlying idea is true. God has no hands but ours, the saying has it. The story came to me via a mass-email from a friend — which in itself sort of demonstrates the point.
The flutter of their wings….
This was written by a Metro Denver Hospice Physician:
I was driving home from a meeting this evening about 5, stuck in traffic on Colorado Blvd., and the car started to choke and splutter and die – I barely managed to coast, cursing, into a gas station, glad only that I would not be blocking traffic and would have a somewhat warm spot to wait for the tow truck. It wouldn’t even turn over. Before I could make the call, I saw a woman walking out of the ‘quickie mart’ building, and it looked like she slipped on some ice and fell into a gas pump, so I got out to see if she was okay.
An obvious answer
It’s an obvious answer, and therefore will not be tried. George Ure asked, Saturday morning, in his urban survival site: www.urbansurvival.com
“THE problem of the new Obama administration is this: How can the US (and for that matter, the whole civilized world) both find meaningful jobs and at the same time increase consumption of goods and services, so that we ‘bottom out’ and turn this economy around?”
The answer is obvious enough.
Scientists develop software that can map dreams
It sounds like science-fiction, and perhaps ominous science-fiction at that. Sometimes it seems like every new technological advance (always termed “scientific advance”) is a new threat to privacy. Of course, that’s a pretty “glass half empty” way of looking at such things…. From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/3705790/Scientists-develop-software-that-can-map-dreams.html
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Thomas Merton’s double birthday
December 10, 1941. Thomas Merton entered a monastery, putting an end to his previous life and beginning another that was to prove more fulfilling in many ways.
December 10, 1968. Thomas Merton was accidentally electrocuted. See previous sentence.
That makes today a double anniversary for one of the more interesting and creative men of the 20th century. He was an Englishmen who became an American, a hedonist atheist who became a monk, an intellectual who became a mystic, a Catholic who met the Dalai Lama as one monk to another.
Redemption for the Polish Leader Who Crushed Solidarity?
In 1981 I was certain that Jaruzelski was wrong, indeed immoral. Over the past 27 years I have come to see things differently. He was in a difficult situation, motivated by patriotism quite as much as his opponents were, and indeed probably avoided a bloodbath and an incalculable prolongation of the Soviet system in response to the perceived threat of Satellite uprisings. But of course, who knows? The point it, he should be given credit for his probably motivation even if his reading of the situation was wrong. After all, all this time later we still can’t be sure!
This from http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862527,00.html
Redemption for the Polish Leader Who Crushed Solidarity?
By BEATA PASEK/WARSAW Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008
In December of 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law on Poland, orchestrating a brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy Solidarity trade union movement that eventually saw some 90 people killed, and around 10,000 detained in internment camps. But as Jaruzelski and six other former top officials set out their defense in a criminal trial over their coup and crackdown, many of the former leaders of Solidarity have emerged among the general’s staunchest defenders. In a bizarre twist of history, the leaders of the very movement Jaruzelski sought to crush 27 years ago now say he was right, at the time, to curb Solidarity’s growing appetite for power.
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Did US officials know that the Japanese attack was coming?
Republicans after the war charged that Roosevelt had deliberately suppressed advance awareness of the attack.
This is one controversy I don’t have any interest in pursuing beyond this elementary reasoning which you may or may not find persuasive.
Concede that FDR knew the likely consequences of his actions in the summer of 1941 (embargoing further fuel and steel shipments to Japan) would be war within a short time unless – improbably – Japan were to agree to withdraw from its decade-long invasion of China and Manchuria, and its year-long occupation of Indochina.
Concede that FDR felt it was vital that America defeat the Nazis, the Fascists and the militarist Japanese. It is well known that he had ordered US warships in the Atlantic to attack Nazi submarines in the summer of 1941.
Concede that an obvious attack upon US forces and territory would be more likely to unite the country behind war than abstract questions of statesmanship.
None of that adds up (in my mind) to a reason to suppress knowledge of an upcoming attack, for one simple reason.
Continue reading Did US officials know that the Japanese attack was coming?