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Most experts tell us that the human body is most comfortable in an environment of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature allows the body to cool neither too quickly nor too slowly.
I would agree, but . . . 72 degrees is too cool in the winter and too warm in the summer.
Huh?
I know, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. In the summer, I am happy only when the air conditioner is cranked up high enough to keep the temperature down to 70 degrees. In the winter, I want 75 degrees to feel warm. I know neither temperature is really needed, that this is a trick my mind is playing on me, but I can’t help it. I change the thermostat.
Pondering this earlier today, I began to see it as a metaphor for other experiences, especially political philosophy. To the conservative, the world is too hot and we need to bring the temperature (whether domestic or foreign) down. To the liberal, the world is too cold and an injection of heat is required.
Right now, we’re trying to find the right temperature for the economic situation, and it’s proving fairly difficult.
Nearly every economic “expert” is advocating a massive government stimulus package to get money moving from one set of hands to another.
If the banks are too afraid to lend money to developers to build houses and shopping malls, the federal government will give the construction industries work building roads and schoolhouses. If consumers can’t find financing for a new car, the feds will let GMAC turn itself into a traditional bank so it can get some of the $700 billion bailout package and make those loans and keep the assembly lines running. If people are losing their health insurance, the feds will expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover more families and keep the nurses and technicians and ambulance drivers on the job.
All of these sound like good ideas to me. The economy is in danger of freezing solid, so the feds should light a few bonfires to raise the temperature a little – for a while. The only question in my mind is how to define “a little” and “a while.” A great deal of the American public seems to agree.
The traditional conservative response to such a stimulus would be to worry that we would be overheating the economy, leading to “runaway” inflation. We’re not hearing much of that lately, although there have been some rumblings of opposition from the Republican leadership of the Congress. With any luck, those rumblings will stay just that, but if they don’t, the Democrats need to find some way to include the rumblers in the process without giving in to political tricks.
It’s very important that we find our way back to an economic 72 degrees, but we have to do it without mind games.
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I'm frankly getting sick of all the worrying over inflation (oops...all of a sudden, it's deflation we're supposed to worry about) in America.
I recall one day when I was out of work, turning on CNBC and listening to the talking heads going on about what people in the market were worrying about. You guessed it--inflation. And some analyst was saying something to the effect that people were worried because inflation might hit FOUR PERCENT! The anchor noted that, back in the 70s, people were anxious because they didn't know whether inflation would be fiteen percent, or eighteen percent.
Here in Russia, the official inflation rate last year was 12 percent, though ordinary Russians know this figure is a government lie and the real figure is closer to 25 percent. And it's been like that, on and off, since the fall of communism. The ruble was been revalued twice, and there are rumors of its happening again.
Americans sorely need some perspective on their "problems".
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