Week Two

President Obama started week two by going to Capitol Hill to gain support among Republicans for his stimulus package. As one might expect, the Republicans are playing the role of the opposition by opposing the plan, even though it contains things that Republicans usually vote for, like tax cuts.

Were I a member of Congress, I would be hard pressed to know what to support, as the so-called expert economists are not in agreement. In fact, they have started to get testy with one another, as this Mankiw post suggests.

The Jan 26, 2009 issue of the New Yorker (which we receive in Tahoe on Jan 26) has an article by Ben McGrath titled The Dystopians, which describes various current and past prognosticators who have raised alarms against the demise of life as we know it. In particular, he writes about his time with Jim Kunstler, an architectural critic, novelist, blogger, and general critic of the way-things-are-now-particularly-in-America. What gave me pause is that Mr. Kunstler makes a lot of sense to me. I am not sure if this is because his prescriptions for returning to a more sustainable lifestyle are just a good idea or they resonate with my 56-year-old brain that is yearning for simplicity.

The reason I mention this after bringing up the stimulus package before Congress is because, if you believe Kunstler, the stimulus package might put us back on the road that led to the crisis in the first place.

Doesn't anyone have a vision of what the world would be like in 25 years (2034) if our energy, environmental, and economic problems were solved?