Grown Ups Talking

Think of all those poor Norwegians shivering away in the icy fjords and midnight sun. All year round they live in a peculiar alcoholic daze first waiting for the sun to rise for six months, then waiting for it to set for the next six.

Then the Nobel Prizes roll around. Suddenly they are the people on everyone’s lips. Attention resounds and they get to have their own version of an Oscar moment, handing out prizes, ecstatic achievers on the other side of the dinner table, generally being patrician benificence dolers.

But its all a little passive. People who have already done something magnificent, for instance Paul Krugman who “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity", are celebrated and clapped on the back and given modest lottery-sized checks. They are the ones who have achieved something, the Norwegians are just clapping.

I think this time round they wanted to be more of part of what’s going on. Catch them young, point them in the right direction. Obama is just an innocent young president, set him on the right path and the Nobellers can give an encouraging shove along the way to salvation.

I mean face it, the U.S. President still has more power to affect more peoples’ lives than anyone else on the planet, why wait to see if he screws it up before giving him a prize?

Why not, gulp, help him out? I mean that’s what it’s about isn’t it? This human existence we have? This human existence that could very well come to a watery end if we can’t move as a species to change our habits and preserve our planet?

I think it’s great they gave his the prize. And I think we should all help him too.—Pomerol

With all the panic about the Fed cutting the federal funds rate by 0.75 basis points – the largest cut since 1982 – it’s time for a bit of good news about the economy. The cut could give the middle class a way of raising a sinking economic boat. Now this is no miracle cure, and Cowboy Bush and his cronies will do their best to keep shrinking the middle class, but I see a tiny opening.

Here’s the crack middle-class homeowners can slip through: In a month or so, the interest rate cut should reach mortgage companies, and those companies likely will be banging on the doors of homeowners that pay their mortgage on time. If I can refinance my fixed rate mortgage and save at least one percentage point on the deal, I will put a bit more money into my pocket – or pay off my mortgage more quickly.

That extra cash should breed more confidence in households, and send me and others to the store to purchase a new washing machine, maybe a new car, perhaps some new furniture. You know, consumer spending.

If the Fed’s rate cut – which was larger than the cut it made in response to the September 11, attacks (that cut was only 50 basis points) – really does trickle down to the middle class, then what’s left of us may be able to spend the country out of a full-blown recession.

If the cut only stimulates some tax breaks for the rich – we can count on a recession. The rich don’t buy washing machines with their extra cash. They invest it. Investments don’t stimulate the economy (that is, don’t keep factories humming or workers busy). Investments just keeps Wall Street handing out bigger and bigger bonuses, and bloat trust funds.

And don’t give me all the voodoo Reaganomics trash talk, or bother arguing the point with me. Instead, ask John Maynard Keynes, or rather the Keynesian economists that are still alive (John Maynard died in 1946), to explain it. Their economic theories are spot on.

The problem, of course, is that George Bush never had to buy a washing machine, so he doesn’t really understand what a true middle class stimulus package would look like. – Chianti.