February 5^th

 

Today we have a column by George Will, the Oxford educated right-wing intellectual. True to form he begins by instructing us in the meaning of “iatrogenic” derived from the Greek which means, generally, problems caused by attempts to remedy another problem. Mr. Will applies this concept to the current government’s efforts to grow the economy.

He also claims that we have reduced our expectations about the economic growth we find satisfactory, a dummying down of expectations encouraged by the press and those in power. He cites many carefully selected statistics which compare the current anemic economic recovery with past economic recoveries, particularly those of the 1980s, 35 years ago. He recognizes that times change. He compares the number of never married 25-to-34 year olds in 1960, 12 percent, to the number of never married in that age group today, 49 percent. The awareness that this time in history is not the same as the 1980s does not seem to have carried over to the economic sphere.

Mr. Will is making what social scientists call longitudinal comparisons. This is like an investor complaining that his return on his McDonalds’ stock is much less over the last ten years than it was from 1965 to i975. He should be comparing McDonalds’ stock over the last ten years with the return over the same period on other hamburger chains. That would be a cross sectional comparison. Mr. Will has an agenda here and cross sectional comparisons of American economic growth with other equivalent countries just doesn’t suit him.

Germany might be a good comparison if Will cared to use it. He doesn’t seem to be interested, much safer to compare our economic recovery with our fabulous economy of the 1980s. Germany has a marginal tax rate of over 45 percent. They also have a mandatory leave system for pregnant women and home leave for new parents of both sexes after the child’s birth. This is clearly socialism at its worst. So how’s the economy? Well, unemployment is just over 5 percent, a little less than ours, and their stock market is booming, up about 7.5 percent in the last three months compared with our S&P which is up a paltry 1.5 percent.  I guess Mr. Will’s penchant for comparing this recovery with previous recoveries is wise.

Toward the end of his column he writes, “The progressive project of maximizing the number of people dependent on government…” He is here reduced to offering yet another right-wing conspiracy theory. He suggests that the progressives don’t want a strong economic recovery because their constituencies would no longer be dependent on the government giveaway social programs. That’s right; Will is clearly implying that the current administration is conspiring to keep the recovery slow to insure the success of their political agenda. Where is psychiatric help when you need it?