Some plain vanilla snark

Bruce Bartlet of The NYC gives us this perspective on rescue plans.

The history of anti-recession efforts is that they are almost always initiated too late to do any good. This chart, based on recession timelines from the National Bureau of Economic Research, shows the enactment of stimulus plans is a fairly accurate indicator that we have hit the bottom of the business cycle, meaning the economy will improve even if the government does nothing.

Whatever his intent in the very short article, I was struck by several things:

1. If we are capable of planning big conspiracies in secret, which appears amply justified to assume, how is it that it appears Washington (or the candidates)is caught flat footed with no legislation? The powers that be were saying all is okay just four months ago, but surely could have thought of alternatives in the dark of night.

2. There were a heck of a lot of recessions I do not remember as a plain citizen.

3. The economy improves, but there is no thought as to how it does nor what improvement means each time. What is the history of improvements short form without using GDP, but using people? Hard to do, but the narrative is what sells, and should be about the length of the Goldilocks book spencer reads to his grandkids.