ECONOMIC SOLIPSISM

Robert J. Samuelson, a regular columnist for one of America's best papers, writes:

By and large, recessions are problems, not tragedies.

Matt Yglesias and others have posted on this despicable attempt to put conservative economic ideology above human beings and rea, a commenter at Matt's, found this great quote from the days Karl Rove and Grover Norquist think fondly of:

To quote Hoover himself:

the “leave it alone liquidationists” headed by [my] Secretary of the Treasury Mellon, who felt that government must keep its hands off and let the slump liquidate itself. Mr. Mellon had only one formula: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.” He insisted that, when the people get an inflation brainstorm, the only way to get it out of their blood is to let it collapse. He held that even a panic was not altogether a bad thing. He said: “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people”...
http://delong.typepad.com/delong_economics_only/2007/02/why_oh_why_cant.html

I'm struck by the line "when the people get an inflation brainstorm" because it glosses over the fact of the much larger role the Masters of the Universe have in these matters.