Saturday, February 14, 2009
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
Michael Barone: The Real Lessons of the Great Depression - '...The jobs programs were widely criticized as "boondoggles" and "leaf-raking." Allegations of political favoritism and corruption were widespread. In the 1938 off-year elections, Democrats lost 81 House seats, 51 of them in the industrial belt from Pennsylvania and Upstate New York west to the Upper Midwest. The Democratic governors of Michigan and Ohio were defeated for re-election. The congressional district that included Flint, Mich., site of the first sit-in strike, went from Democratic to Republican; so did most congressional districts in Ohio...'
Rogoff, Krugman and others in a two-part video on the banking and economic crises. Rogoff provides the most incisive criticisms with Krugman a close second. They don't mention it specifically, but over a dozen banks have failed now and it's certain to be more - and as Rogoff notes the overall cost to govt will be measured in the multiplied trillions, on top of TARP and the so-called "stimulus" both.
Part I, Part II