stimulus now!--an all-too-close reading of a manifestly wretched manifesto

liber.rhetoricae (a blog) ^ | July 21, 2010 | Gilbert Wilkes

[dotan]

[...] Here be a 3 paragraph manifesto titled Stimulus Now, signed by many "notable economists," and available at the Daily Beast in an article titled "Reboot America!" Or is "Reboot America" the title of the manifesto? Or is "Get America back to Work" the title? I’m not certain. The document seems to have lots of titles. I have interpolated my own comments.

Fourteen million unemployed represents a gigantic waste of human capital, an irrecoverable loss of wealth and spending power, and an affront to the ideals of America. Some 6.8 million have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. Members of Congress went home to celebrate July 4 having failed to extend unemployment benefits.

(1) The verb "represents" in the first line seems odd to me. 14m unemployed stands in for, or symbolizes, a waste of human capital? That seems strange, so the term "represents" in this case seems to mean "indicate," or something, but why use a verb that connotes a relation of remove from the actual? The writer could have used the simpler, and stronger relation of identity, which means the be-form verb "is," as in, 14m unemployed is a gigantic waste of human capital [...]

More follows.

[dotan]

A review of the Stimulus Now! manifesto available at the Daily Beast, and how Larry Summers has seized on the same argument, a complete u-turn from the Obama entourage's erstwhile talk of austerity.

The manifesto: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-19/save-the-economy-a-manifesto-by-harry-evans-joseph-stiglitz-alan-blinder-and-other-leaders/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

[humblegunner]

This is a good example of why blogs suck.
Look at the capitalization. The formatting.

There is NO quality control.
A six year old might have written this.

Who would listen to such an ignorant person?