Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Unlike 9/11, the current disaster is coming to us, not with a bang, but a series of whimpers, a slow rollout of economic devastation--lost jobs and homes, business failures and, most of all, an almost primitive fear of the future.

At this point, even bad news is somewhat reassuring if it isn't as bad as expected. The decline in gross domestic product, at a 3.8 percent annual rate, fell short of the 5 to 6 percent that most economists had expected for the fourth quarter.

But the explanation is not cheering: Consumption collapsed so quickly that a plethora of unsold goods in inventory are being counted as part of the nation’s output.

-- ROBERT STEIN

[H]ow did we end up in a society where Williams College has (or had, before September) an endowment well in excess of one billion dollars, while the Washington Post, a fountainhead of Watergate and so much other skeptical and investigative reporting critical to the republic's health, is in jeopardy? I'm sure that Williams-generated nostalgia in the emotional lives of wealthy people is hard to underestimate, but still . . .

-- STEVE COLL

This week, American companies announced somewhere around 65,000 layoffs. Caterpillar, Kodak, Home Depot, I.B.M., even mighty Microsoft: they are all cutting jobs. Everywhere in the United States, people are feeling the pain of this deepening recession. Even those with jobs worry about their futures. Their 401(k) plans have been decimated. They are frightened and angry.

Which is why Wall Street should not be surprised that oversize bonuses and $50 million jets generate outrage -- and tough rejoinders from the president. "It suggests the selfishness of people on Wall Street," said Charles Elson, a corporate governance expert at the University of Delaware, who sounded pretty outraged himself. "Wall Street has yet to learn the lesson of what happened." What happened, put simply, is that the people who thought of themselves as the smartest guys in the room -- and were paid accordingly -- weren't so smart after all. They brought down the financial system. They lost so much money that only the government can save them. The scolding they got from the president this week suggests that they're going to be paying a price -- richly deserved, I might add -- for a good long time.

-- JOSEPH NOCERA

There is a solution for what ails these people, but beating them and throwing them out their window is frowned upon in a so-called civilized society. Civilized assumes that exchanges aren't made at gun point - but they've brought out the gun. If you don't fix our mess your economy is just going to tank. They brought out the biggest WMD available outside the Defense Department, "everybody except the rich gets screwed into poverty."

Most of us who supported the concept of a bailout understood this piece and loathed them for putting that gun to our head. Of course you had to leave it to BushCo to make sure that what little control was in the authorization evaporated. Now I do not have income envy, but I do have a massive resentment for this "entitled" attitude. Their performance has entitled them to be unemployed from a broken and ruined company. Their paycheck, never mind bonus, is due to the American Taxpayer. I don't know how you get that concept through their thick skulled me-me-me heads short of violence.

-- CHUCK BUTCHER

Should we be upset about the buy-American provisions in the stimulus bill? Is there an economic case for such provisions? The answer is yes and yes. And I do think it's important to be honest about the second yes.

The economic case against protectionism is that it distorts incentives: each country produces goods in which it has a comparative disadvantage, and consumes too little of imported goods. And under normal conditions that’s the end of the story.

But these are not normal conditions. We're in the midst of a global slump, with governments everywhere having trouble coming up with an effective response.

-- PAUL KRUGMAN

In recent years, there has been national alarm about the rising rate of home foreclosures, which now strike one in every 92 households in America and which contribute to even broader macroeconomic effects. The "standard account" of home foreclosure attributes this spike to loose lending practices, irresponsible borrowers, a flat real estate market, and rising interest rates. Based on our study of homeowners going through foreclosures in four states, we find that the standard account fails to represent the facts and thus makes a poor guide for policy. In contrast, we find that half of all foreclosures have medical causes, and we estimate that medical crises put 1.5 million Americans in jeopardy of losing their homes last year.

-- CHRISTOPHER T. ROBERTSON

What are the fundamental objections to the Obama-Pelosi plan? It is three parts social spending to one part stimulus. It takes too long to work. It represents a permanent not temporary expansion of government.

It is too much LBJ, who bet the ranch on spending and failed, and not enough JFK, who bet on tax reductions that succeeded. Even Bill Clinton would not have ceded so much to the tax-and-spend wing of his party, which he relied on for votes, not advice.

Has Obama no more imaginative ideas for government’s role in reshaping the economy for the 21st century than this? Was it all talk all along, to prepare the way for a return to the days of spend and spend?

- PATRICK BUCHANAN

Cartoon by Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate