Atlas Vomited

Yesterday the Cato Institute long time defenders of the Rights's right to be consistently wrong published an Ad claiming the real consensus among economists is that the New Deal was an economic failure and any stimulus bill is bound to fail.

In alcoholism this is known as the DTs. They're seeing bugs everywhere. Instead of communal and social libations they've been drinking the damaging wood alcohol of libertarianism for so long they've drunk themselves into an intellectual stupor. Where all they can do is throw up the bilge from the poison they've been inbibing. And moan. Moan about the failure of the New Deal; the abject economic failure the American people so disapproved of that they reelected FDR three times. But then, Atlas Vomited. And surprisingly it smells pretty much like what the Cato Institute calls air freshener.

Basically stating that 3 years after the new deal was enacted GDP was larger than is was before the crash and unemployment had risen from 25% to 15%.

One of the reasons for the fight over the New Deal is apparently how you categorize the 2.5 million people who worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the peak of the Depression. The reactionaries like to count them as unemployed, even though they were collecting a pay check and doring very valuable work (which we still enjoy today in many city, county, state and federal parks).

NPR said that depressions used to be known as "Panics." Then, Herbert Hoover decided that the word Panic was too negative, so he came up with the term "Depression" to calm people down.

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If cows could fly, the steel umbrella business WOULD be booming. :eyes:

Libertarianism ain't nothin' but a justification of inequality and exploitation.

Libertarians are Republicans who like to smoke pot

that describes every Libertarian I know...

From the Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson. A surprisingly political series.

edit: I'm just wondering where Frank went.

that distill and sell the wood alcohol to the alcoholics. This is their PR campaign advocating blindness as an "viable lifestyle".

A lot of regulars there would enjoy it.

I saw a person go through the DT's once. Not a pretty sight. Especially the hallucinations.

Cato should change their name to Crackpot Institute. After I ran for congress a few years ago, they started sending me all of their policy position reports. After a while, they automatically got tossed, unopened.

I heard this this morning and knew I had to post about it today. See this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5025284&mesg_id=5025284