The Dismal Science and a Dead Lizard King

Been light on the blogging for a while – a) I’ve been busy and b) I’ve been sick as a dog – I don’t know why a dog should the ultimate example of being sick but there you have it – I have learned not to question the wisdom of the makers of idiomatic expressions.

Anyway, I’ve been locked in las casa de illness for the past week – I did drag myself to work Wednesday on but I think the only result was everybody else is getting sick. Well on to other things

Been reading Paul Krugman’s book Depression Economics – one does not stay as boring as I am without constant study – and true to its title, it’s a pretty grim read. Krugman is in a way an heir to the John Kenneth Galbraith wing of economics – although much more towards the center than JKG ever was – but in these days anyone left of Milton Friedman is considered some kind of dangerous radical.

Economics is a funny discipline in a lot of ways – it’s treated as important because it is about money and anything about money will always get people’s attention, it’s cloaked in of complex mathematical formulas much more so than the other social sciences and it has a rather peculiar ideological component that the free market is the correct answer every time to every social question. . Which can lead people to make – what are in hindsight (and even well before) – hideously bad even stupid choices.

Anyway Krugman isn’t that amused by that aspect of the deal, although the recent trashing of FDR and Keynes in the right wing press has caused him no little amusement.

One thing as I was buying the book I founded surrounded by books that were insisting that the gods were still in the temples and that the solution to the problems was more deregulation and just to pick a random example that CEO’s are not over paid (you might want to check on that out a bit since they are the ones screaming for government handouts right now)

In the book Krugman examines several events that led panics and the kind of sluggish no growth afterwards for quite some time - the essence of how the great depression played out.

One of the odd things about this crisis is that there are people who – despite years – like years and years of evidence – continue to proscribe slashing government spending and balancing the budget – this is akin to some one suggest that they bleed the patient to treat the infection despite the large stocks of antibiotics on hand.

It would be amusing if people’s lives weren’t going to get ruined by all this.

Meantime the internets let me know what if the lizard king had lived he would be 65 years old today.

The idea of an acid casualty Morrison just gibbering into a press microphone today as he swilled scotch is rather too depressing for words.

The doors and the myth of the doors held me in a un healthy fascination for a time when I was younger. It was a bad time for me – everything life, sex, death, love, just day to day things seemed fucking dangerous to me – whole sense of self was very very fluid to be sure. Hell, I was very young, in years and in experience. To me, Jim was the yeah isn’t’ that great – it’s all dangerous, it’s freedom to me. At least until the Ramones showed me another path. Still once I finish this, I’m going listen to the old man.

Peace love You cannot petition the lord with prayer!