The Keynes English

Focusing on Britain's drastic round of public sector job cuts, the New York Times predictably mourns European governments' abandonment of John Maynard Keynes' theory we can overspend our way out of recession. But the Times says nothing about the 300,000 private sector jobs the "Spectator" says the British economy has created this year. Did the Tory mag just make it up?

We're All Keynesians? Naw.

When Great Britain and Germany opted for fiscal austerity instead of more deficit-ballooning stimulus measures, Paul Krugman warned of a global double-dip recession. He's been doubly refuted, since both countries are beginning to boom.

Six Recessions and A Depression

It's a sunny afternoon at St. John's, and the 5th graders await a lesson on Abram and Sarai (When's the change to Abraham and Sarah? Anyone?... Anyone? That's right: In Genesis 17. It's on the test, kids!). As always, a few indecent people are behaving indecently, and yet the vast majority are doing the best they can. On the bread front, housing numbers are encouraging, the Dow's up nearly 2% (as of five minutes ago, at least), and Ben Bernanke is steady in the buggy. On the circuses front, the AIG scandal is better than "Dallas." And now TIME has this chart on job losses, which makes the Bush-Obama recession of '08-'09 look an awful lot like Carter-Reagan's of '80-'82. Still terrible for those who are suffering. But there's hope this week, suddenly, isn't there?, that isn't not like Hoover-FDR's. Hope that it seemed almost reckless to feel just two weeks ago.

There's just something about Lent.

If No One Hears Good News, Did It Happen?

From Roland Manarin, 21 reasons why the worst of the recession may be past.

$840 Billion Didn't Rescue Japan

Veronique de Rugy:

Obama is right to cite the example of Japan. That nation's collapsed housing and stock markets in the 1990s are very relevant to today's recession. Between 1992 and 1999, Japan passed eight stimulus packages, totaling roughly $840 billion in today's dollars. During that time, the debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio skyrocketed, the country was rocked by massive corruption scandals, and the economy never recovered. All Japan had to show for it was a mountain of debt and some public works projects that look suspiciously like bridges to nowhere.

Let's Spend The $800 Billion Anyway, Just In Case

The Congressional Budget Office says the recession will end this year without a stimulus bill.

The Recession's "Web Of Fear"

Having read a perhaps apocryphal story about a fired executive begging on Madison Ave. to feed her four children, Lucy Kellaway wonders if the world wide web has ensnared us all:

The Internet has created a global psyche. The web has mentally joined us at the hip, so we can no longer put our heads in the sand. If that sounds painfully contorted, it is because it is. Just as no country can decouple itself from the ailing global economy, none of us as individuals can decouple ourselves from the ailing global psyche.

Through blogs, websites and e-mails the world’s economic ills are fed to us on a drip all day long. It is not just that we hear about bad things faster, we hear about more of them and in a more immediate way. My worries become yours, and yours become mine. On the Internet, a trouble shared online is not a trouble halved. It is a trouble needlessly multiplied all over the world.