BECK'S "BEING THERE" ECONOMICS

The movie Being There was about how a rich man's gardener leapt to the national stage based a series of misunderstandings. People interpret his simple-minded statements as profundities and here's one example:

President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President "Bobby": In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President "Bobby": Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.

Today Beck expressed one of the cruelest economic thoughts I've heard so far from a wingnut - we should allow another Great Depression, this time without any of the New Deal programs. Beck thinks we have to go through an economic hard "winter" before we can prosper again. Here's the segment from the transcript:

Kondratieff was a guy who was the economic advisor for Stalin. There's something called the Kondratieff Wave in economics and basically it is that, you know, there are seasons to everything. There is the winter season that we're in now and it seems like it will never end. And then you hear green shoots. You've heard those phrases before, green shoots. That comes from the Kondratieff Wave. The advisor of Stalin. Economy said there would be green shoots and that would show that spring would come. And in spring you would think that we were new and we were refreshed and we were revived, and the economy would start to boom again and people would say, oh, my gosh, I've got another idea. And then summer would set in. And summer would go on for a very long time where it would be just good times and people would begin to think that it would never end. But then autumn, and autumn would set in and you would start to see the season change and you would notice that the leaves are starting to turn and you would think, my gosh, the plants are starting to die and the trees are starting to lose their leaves. If you don't understand the cycle, you would do everything you could to bring those plants into a greenhouse. But those plants will go to sleep anyway, and the more you try to stimulate the growth in those trees, the better chance you have of killing the forest. The leaves all fall down and then you hit winter. And in that winter, that is a season of renewal.