Found in the Translation

This is New Year’s Day, 2012, and we’re still looking for signs of that “recovery” the economists and government personnel insist is upon us. Professor Stiglitz isn’t buying the garbage, however, and neither are we. Read again what he had to say last week:

– “It is important to grasp this simple truth: it was government spending … not any correction of monetary policy or any revival of the banking system – that brought recovery.”
(Translation: Put up and shut up.)

– “Government spending unintentionally solved the economy’s underlying problem: it completed a necessary structural transformation …”
(Translation: Open your eyes, Mr. President. We need the same structural transformation – shipbuilding – that ended the unemployment crisis in the 1930s.)

– “Two conclusions can be drawn from this brief history. The first is that the economy will not bounce back on its own …”
(Translation: Don’t listen to the incompetents who would have you believe otherwise, Mr. President.)

– “Monetary policy is not going to help us out of this mess. Ben Bernanke has, belatedly, admitted as much …”
(Translation: Ben Bernanke is reported to have stated that even if the U.S. passed three or four more stimulus packages, it wouldn’t even matter. That money wouldn’t create long-term economic growth or job opportunities.)

– “What we need to do instead is embark on a massive investment program – as we did, virtually by accident, 80 years ago – that will increase our productivity for years to come, and will also increase employment now.”
(Translation: Revitalize our shipyards. It wouldn’t take a “massive” investment – and it would create “employment now”. “The productivity for years to come” would be the ongoing construction of our patented container ships – a guarantee of an astounding and ongoing “multiplier effect.”)

– “Can we actually bring ourselves to do this, in the absence of mobilization for a global war? Maybe not …”
(Translation? None needed. Because hourly wages are so much higher in this country, will we ever be able to produce goods as cheaply as our overseas competitors do? Absolutely not. There’s no “maybe” about it.)

But our patented container ships, The Jones Act, and Title XI, put us in a position where there will be no competitors. Guaranteed jobs and weekly paychecks will restore our buying power, and in order to satisfy the demands of U.S. buyers, lowly paid foreign workers will produce those demanded goods, and our new container ships will be chock full (thankfully) to … well, you know the rest.