Our friend, Piedmont Publius, wonders if perhaps the stimulus program was not well thought-out. Hating the use of the word “stimulus,” I was trying to think of a word to more accurately expose its evils. I tried “Chinese loans,” but then I seemed to recall that the Fed owned about twice as much of the debt as foreign interests. I located current information. The federal deficit has not yet topped $11 trillion. It is tottering around $10.99 trillion as I write. The Fed owns 49.37% of the national debt, while foreign interests own 27.90%.

Back to the issue of thinking, I had to wonder how thick the progressive veil of feeling was to occlude such internally-inconsistent values. They advocate for policies for soaking the rich, yet they scramble for stimulus funds, to be paid by the national debt, which is almost half-owned by the Fed, which, in turn, is owned mostly by large banks. That means, progressives like paying taxes – or raising taxes on owners of small forutnes – to help pay interest to the worlds largest and most powerful bankers. Next, progressives clamor for transparency in government, but scarcely release a peep requesting more information about who is the Fed and what they say at their meetings.

On a more microcosmic scale, at Tuesday’s city council meeting, Brownie Newman made a laudable, humanitarian [sic.] plea for not freezing city employee salaries because it will hurt the people with the lowest incomes the most. Mumpower followed with a request to cut the salaries of council members and senior management. That was disdained. Nobody seemed to realize the two councilmen were speaking about the two sides of the same coin. “Source” seems to be an ugly word the thought police want removed from the vocabulary of public policy makers.

It goes back to my idea that if hope and want and need are the economic engines we are told, let’s cut the workweek back to two days. Let people sit around for three days hoping for peeled grapes to drop from heaven into their mouths. Let them spend another day and a half filling out all the paperwork the government is demanding in exchange for acceptance of stimulus. And then let them produce the goods and services that maintain our standard living in the remaining four hours.