all too common wisdom

(1 comment)
2003.05.04
Politics of the Moment
In my judgment, in the judgment of a lot of economists - and the truth of the matter is, it's now become kind of the common wisdom in Washington, D.C. - the best way to create growth is to let people keep more of their own money.
GWB
Man, that's not what I've heard from the economists, including the beloved Greenspan (who thinks tax breaks are kind of ok, but only if it doesn't lead to big deficit spending.) But this is the way this administration works, repeat something enough and then after a while you can start calling it "common wisdom".

On a related note, Slate.com poses that musical question, George Walker Hoover? Even the promised 1.4 million jobs in 18 months that the plan should bring is below average job growth. Bush's might be the first presidency since Hoover where the American economy lost jobs...I know that's after a runup bubble (where taxes were raised on the highest earners and we added 5 million jobs in a year and a half...though maybe that was all the magic power of the Internet) but still, the fact is the adminstration doesn't know how to fix it.


Funny of the Moment
I mistyped Ranjit's site moonmilk as "moonmilik" and in trying to get back on track via IE's MSN post-404 search engine (Stupidly, I should remember to just retype it in the URL field at the top) I noticed that the first moonmilk hit is Dear Postal Customer, a kind of funny note from the post office explaining some letter damage...but if you look at what it's trying to explain, it's kind of like damning with faint apology.


Randomness of the Moment
So Brooke came over, and rode shotgun as I finished this month's Blender of Love, and actually wrote the front page blurb. (Along with laughing at the horrible grammar of some of the posts.) And with that blurb's "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" reference, Mo mentioned a weird snort in the middle of the song. Brooke and I didn't believe her, but we managed to track down this Wav file (found on this webpage) and sure enough, there is a random sound in the middle of it. Brooke and I thought it was more of a grunt or a "rooof!" (ala "Who Let The Dogs Out") than a snort, but still, I really had no memory of it being there.

By the way, everyone should buy and read the graphic novel Clumsy that I reviewed for this month's Blender. It's great and bittersweetly romantic.