Letters to the Editor

The Great Depression: The sequel Is it coming to a soup kitchen near you? Here's how we'll know if the current recession is turning into something much worse. By Andrew Leonard [2008-04-02]

• The Not-So-Great Depression

  The richest Americans are gobbling up the lion's share of the fruits of economic growth, while for everyone else, wages barely keep up with inflation, good jobs become increasingly scarce, and making ends meet gets tougher and tougher.

  The GOP is only offering one "fix" for this: more tax cuts for the wealthy. That's their panacea, in good times or bad -- cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans when the economy is strong, and cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans when the economy is weak.

  My question is whether the mythology of the upper-income tax cut will ever be vanquished? Or is it just making too much money for all of the right people to actually ever die?

  What worries me is that military Keynesianism was sort of the way out of the Great Depression (e.g., WWII set the stage for a permanent wartime economy as a way to keep things rolling). But as we've experienced many decades of this, as the Pentagon's only gotten ever fatter at the table, where do you go from up on military spending?

  Or will our country literally bite the bullet and push for domestic spending on the level that it's done for the Pentagon over the decades? Our largest socialist institution in America is the Pentagon -- but any talk of turning that kind of money to our infrastructure (schools, parks, roads, bridges, libraries, etc.) brings out the wingdings aplenty in opposition, howling in rage.

  Is America's citizenry a vital national resource, or are we just expendable assets in the global marketplace? Seems like politicians are going to have to choose at some point.

  -- Slackie Onassis
  [Read Slackie Onassis's other letters]
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