New York Times columnist David Brooks is syndicated in my local paper on Tuesdays. As conservative columnists go, Brooks lacks the lunatic fervor of an Ann Coulter or the complete disregard for the facts of a Jonah Goldberg. But this doesn't stop him from occasionally writing a column that's just plain odd. I suppose it's some conservative columnist industry standard -- from time to time, at the very least, you have to write something screwy.With "The Worst-Case Scenario," Brooks fills his quota of goofy for a while -- mostly by breaking out a crystal ball and predicting that the stimulus will fail by 2010.
Why will the stimulus fail by 2010? Because the American consumer is crazy. He starts off sane enough, giving a fairly accurate history of the economic crisis so far, but he slips into conservative goofiness when he starts writing about 2010 in the past tense.
During 2010, the economic decline abated, but the recovery did not arrive. There were a few false dawns, and stagnation. The problem was this: The policy makers knew how to pull economic levers, but they did not know how to use those levers to affect social psychology.
The crisis was labeled an economic crisis, but it was really a psychological crisis. It was caused by a mood of fear and uncertainty, which led consumers to not spend, bankers to not lend and entrepreneurs to not risk. No amount of federal spending could change this psychology because uncertainty about the future remained acute.
Not learning from the example of Phil Gramm, Brooks blames us for economic decline, because of what Gramm called a "mental recession." There's nothing wrong with the economy, you just think there is. Because you've got some sort of psychological problem that only conservative trickle-down, free-market economics can set right. All we have to do is put away all that fancy-schmancy economic theory, forget about all the "models and projections," and -- I don't know -- get together for a national group hug or something. Brooks isn't exactly clear on what we should do, just what we shouldn't. What is clear is that Gramm was 100% right -- we're a "nation of whiners."... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
