Can you have 1937 both ways?

Paul Krugman wrote a well reasoned, if somewhat depressing, op-ed in the NY Times today invoking the lessons of 1937 i.e. believing the economy is recovering faster than it is and neglecting to take the steps to keep things moving.

The next G.D.P. report is likely to show solid growth in late 2009. There will be lots of bullish commentary — and the calls we’re already hearing for an end to stimulus, for reversing the steps the government and the Federal Reserve took to prop up the economy, will grow even louder.

But if those calls are heeded, we’ll be repeating the great mistake of 1937, when the Fed and the Roosevelt administration decided that the Great Depression was over, that it was time for the economy to throw away its crutches. Spending was cut back, monetary policy was tightened — and the economy promptly plunged back into the depths.

He argues rather convincingly that some of the reports coming out (increase in manufacturing, etc.) are statistical blips and should not be considered as a reason to discontinue stimulus efforts. Which he believes are already on the way to being discontinued. He may or may not be right. (Japan made the same mistakes in the mid-90’s.) But the points are well taken.

Almost inextricable, however, is this response to Krugman’s piece. I mean I know we’re not dealing with a real top-of-the-line intellectual thinker here but how did the Commies and the Nazis get involved?

Moscow was staging show trials and executions, Nazi Germany was staging its dress rehearsal in Spain while Hitler finetuned his “Lebensraum” policy and warmed up the Holocaust with a spiralling series of restrictions on Jews and other minorities, Japan was busy raping Nanking, and Neville Chamberlain became prime minister. Lots of Americans, including large parts of the body politic, assumed none of that was their problem. Nothing they needed to worry about behind their oceans, anyway. In 1937, the Democratic president of the United States didn’t fully get it yet, either, though shortly he would, and would rise to become a major figure in world history for his stalwart and even ruthless struggle against dire threats to freedom both before and after the United States entered the war.

What. does. any. of. this. have. to. do. with. theeconomystupid?

But let’s throw global warming in there for good measure while we’re at it. Shorter Crittendon: “If Obama would just bomb Iran, none of this would have happened!”

Posted by marindenver on 01/04/10 at 07:36 PM • Permalink

Categories: Politics • Barack Obama • Bedwetters • Editorials • Nutters • Skull Hampers •

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Lots of Americans, including large parts of the body politic, assumed none of that was their problem. Nothing they needed to worry about behind their oceans, anyway.

This poster is disingenuously overlooking the heinous damage done by the “America First” crowd back in the day, which basically said “it ain’t our problem folks, move along, nothing to see here” and, when it became apparent the Nazis weren’t going to settle down & play nice “omg! NAZIS! We can’t fight them, it’s Europe’s problem, not OURS, by golly!”

They were almost entirely Republicans, of course.

Comment by zhak on 01/04/10 at 10:44 PM

I agree with Jules Crittenden that Krugman missed a golden opportunity to draw a totally non sequitur parallel with pre-1941 American isolationism.

Worse, whether by ignorance or intentional, agenda-driven omission, Krugman utterly overlooks the Hindenburg disaster, the awarding of a patent for nylon and the bloody breakup of a Republic Steel workers’ strike by Chicago police—all of which also occurred in 1937 and are equally irrelevant to the point of Krugman’s article.

Alas, Krugman undermines his own argument and ill-serves his reading audience by slavishly focusing on the topic of his column, instead of detouring into a fugue on literary themes in the 1937 film versions of Captains Courageous and The Life of Emile Zola.

Oh, and A Day at the Races? I guess it would be naive to expect an Obama suck-up like Krugman to get within 100 miles of the “foreclosure” and “bet the farm” foreshadowings of 2009 embodied in this prescient comedy-of-errors.

Sorry. In my book, Krugman is just like Hitler.