Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Good luck and best wishes, President Obama

2689 days since Sept. 11, 2001, and there have been no major terrorist attacks on US soil. Keep it going!

Glenn Reynolds has an interesting screencap from Drudge:
Dems have been saying that the economy was in bad shape for years, when it was not. Now they have what they wanted, a Democratic Party President and Congress. Mission accomplished. Here's the problem: after working for years to crash the economy, for the sake of this election, now that they are in power, can they bring it back? Do they even want to? Or will we be seeing Rooseveltian programs reminiscent of the WPA and CCC, that further enlarge the public sector at the expense of the private sector? As formerly independent citizens become clients of government agencies, the Atlas Shrugged moment draws ever more nigh. Of course, a Chicago pol knows that you can only graft so hard without killing the goose. But it's a delicate balance.

Side note: An older friend tells me that WPA stood for "We poke along." Leaning on the shovels kind of thing.

Related: note the shapes of the lines on this graph, particularly the red one. Wellywanger at Theo's place has a similar one from Britain.

No comments: