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Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

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Monday, January 26, 2004
17:54 - Conventional Wisdom

(top) link
I was at another of those conventions this weekend, in case anybody's wondering where the devil I've been. One of those conventions where the parking lot of the hotel is filled with Saturns covered with rainbow stickers (it's a factory-installed option!) and little 80s SUVs plastered with upside-down American flags and slogans like REPEAL THE PATRIOT ACT and ONE NATION, UNDER SURVEILLANCE and IT'S THE OIL, STUPID and a blood-dripping BUSHARON and I MAY LOOK LIKE A FREAK, BUT I CAN BEAT YOU AT JEOPARDY and I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK (to which I silently respond, Yeah, well, good luck taking it away from the rest of us. See you at the polls, Scooter!)

At one of the art auctions that I attended in order to procrastinate more effectively, it was difficult not to notice that few people were in attendance, and bidding was less than energetic. People were putting up anemic bids of $15 and $20 for full sets of comic books and pieces of original art, and the best bid-baiting anybody could get to stick was to coax everybody to raise bids to the next prime number.

At one point, the auctioneer, holding up a particularly non-desirable piece of art, looked out despairingly over the crowd, who just wasn't biting. And he said, "This is all George Bush's fault!"

Which, of course, got applause and rueful laughter. And a fresh round of bids.

See, the Dow may be over 10,700, and every economic indicator in the world may be giddily positive. But here's what's infuriating.

a) People who aren't paying attention to the news are still convinced we're in a deep recession; and

b) They're sure it's all Bush's fault.

Point out to these people that the crash of the dot-com sector and the freefall of the stock market began during Clinton's term, and they'll just shake their heads and stare dumbly. Or they'll claim that if it weren't for Bush, the recession would have resolved itself much sooner.

Mention the tax cuts, and they'll sniff dismissively. "They weren't fair! And they haven't done any good!"

Point out that yes, in fact they have done a lot of good, and manufacturing expansion is at its highest level since the 1950s, and so on and so forth, and they'll say that they don't have jobs yet, so what's everybody so excited about? And anyway, the economy was bound to recover on its own. Tax cuts-- bah!

Come back in six months, when unemployment has sunk to late-90s levels or less, and the refrain will probably still be "too little, too late"-- there'll be some far more complex and less compelling argument made than "Tax cuts => economic recovery". And yet it'll be what's on everybody's lips come election time. Somehow or other, it'll still all be Bush's fault; somehow or other, the economy will be made into a liability for his campaign and not an asset.

Ah well. It's not like logic or realism were ever terribly popular at these conventions.


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