This Labor Day weekend ends a summer that was long, hot,* and dismal. Economic news? Bad to worse. So too analyses of what’s to come.
Having predicted downturn long before many in the mainstream media, this ’Grrl is hardly a Pollyanna on fiscal policy. Nonetheless, I can’t wait for a theme running through much commentary to run its course.
The theme cropped up again a few days ago, in Maureen Dowd’s kvetch about a White House makeover. Key quote among many swipes:
As we've posted in another context, concern about poor Presidential communication is well founded.The recession redo, paid for by the nonprofit White House Historical Association, was the latest tone-deaf move by a White House that was supposed to excel at connection and communication. Message: I care, but not enough to stop the fancy vacations and posh renovations.
Concern about spending, not so much.
As any student of ECON 101 well knows, underdemand means oversupply. Not a good thing. If no one buys, sellers lose out. Stores close and employees are out of work.
Recovery requires that persons who can – CEOs, persons who saved well during the last bubble, and yes, the 1st Family – should spend. New carpets and remade couches. R&R at the Vineyard, and the Gulf coast. Spain, even.
Stirring of the economic pot is what's in order – not a populist tune that may sound good but is, in the end, unsound.
* So it’s reported, from reaches of the United States outside the zone of cold coastal fog that cloaked the San Francisco Bay Area lo! these many months.
