Economic Salvation Prescriptions du jour -- The Frustration of Thrashing About

Here we are, almost at the end of the month of August, and it seems like this country and its economy are pretty much right where they were at the end of last year.  During these eight months we--that is, you and I, the "typical" or "average" or "middle class" or "non-politician" or "not-an-elected-official" or "not-a-captain-of-industry" type of person who comprises about 98% of the population of this country--have been suffused on a daily basis with competing ideas on how to best improve the American economy.  These "prescriptions du jour" for our economic salvation have apparently produced little in the way of tangible gain, as evidenced by the U.S. Commerce Department's report this morning which reported that real GDP growth for the second quarter of the year was 1% over the first quarter.

So many ideas, so much debate, so much noise, so much chatter, and yet so little to show for it.  That's a lot of thrashing about, and it is very frustrating.

In reflecting on this, it seemed to me that Mark Twain might have said or written something that could be an appropriate comment, and maybe even provide a hint of guidance.  Sure enough, after a little searching this dandy passage turned up:  "Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."  (From The Facts concerning the Recent Resignation Sketches New & Old (1900), p. 350.)

These "prescriptions du jour" are like the massacre.  They are described with embellishments of urgency, finality and calamity.  Soap and education is what you are getting if you have read this far, and especially if you continue reading:  it is analysis.  It is the process of cutting through the puerile posturing of the petty, pugnacious and pusillanimous from among those of our pundits, politicians and prophetic prognosticators of labor and industry who consume the nation's oxygen in order to out-speak the others; it is a process conducted with informed, thoughtful and critical analysis.