Wall Street and the real estate markets have taken big hits, and so, to prevent a major recession, our president and representatives immediately began one-upping each other about a “stimulus package.”
And my thoughts go back to my classroom days. In biology.
There were these frogs, see. Dead frogs. On the table. Some of the kids would take a battery with some wires attached, and prod the dead frog, stimulating nerves to make the dead, half-dissected frogs jump.
Half the boys in the class thought it a hoot, half the girls thought it gross. Or maybe more than half.
Sometimes I think this is about as much as we ever were prepared for thinking about stimulus packages.
The economy is not a dead frog. it’s alive, and it’s received a shock. A better analogy might be to someone who’s received a blow to the head. You don’t necessarily immediately start applying shock therapy to get the person moving. Ask a nurse what to do. Most of the time, the body repairs itself. In due time. With care taken not to jar the person again.
But a blow to an ecosystem — like an economy — is more complicated than even some guy with a concussion. And, listening to the debate over the stimulus package, and then reading actual, astute economists consider the politicians’ proposals, and Iâ’m thinking …
Frog or no frog, the stimulus notions politicians prefer seem more directed towards influencing voters than getting the economy to jump back into action.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.