As best I recall, sometime this past
December, I rashly confided to a select handful of friends (as if I have that
many to begin with) how I thought the Dow would top 13000 before the year was
up. Not, mind you, that I’m expecting it to remain there for any length of time.
Or even, necessarily, anywhere near it again anytime soon. But what if it does,
and more? Suppose this was the first jolt of a really
sustained recovery, complete with jobs, rising home prices and (my imagination
is staggering) negligible inflation. What would that mean? Would it prove that
Quantitative Easing was working? That it had been the right approach all along? Or
would it merely stand as evidence that, however secure any upturn produced by
stimulus might seem, we’d be enjoying that much stronger and more lasting a recovery had we embraced policies
of austerity a la Britain’s David Cameron?
One thing is all but certain to me. If recovery does take hold, Democrats will chalk it up to the enduring wisdom of Old Man Keynes, and
Republicans will blame it on the enduring profitability of domestic fossil
fuels.
That’s the problem with wars of
ideas. And especially nasty ones like our current orgies of
self-congratulation on both sides. Truth isn't so much the first casualty as he is an
unwanted guest sentenced to take all his meals with the children and the
servants.
Which, now that I think of
it, is not at all a bad place for Truth to start re-disseminating.
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