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EARS
EARTH (THE)
EASTERNERS / EATING
ECONOMICS / ECONOMY (THE)

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EARS

see: "THE BODY"


[Of Clark Gable:]That man's ears make him
look like a taxi-cab with both doors open.
--Howard Hughes Jr. (1905—1976)
American industrialist, aviator, and film producer.
Quoted in Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg _Celluloid Muse_ [1969].

^

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742—1799)
German physicist and satirist.

One day a person not noted for his tact made a
slighting remark to Lichtenberg about his notably
large ears. Lichtenberg replied: 'Well, just think
of it — with my ears and your brains we'd make
a perfectly splendid ass, wouldn't we?'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^



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EARTH (THE)

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see: "ENVIRONMENT"
see: "FARMING"
see: "UNIVERSE"
see: "WORLD"


All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
--Cecil Frances Alexander (1818—1895)
English hymnwriter.
"All Things Bright and Beautiful" [1848] st. 1

The lunatic asylum of the solar system.
--Samuel Parkes Cadman (1864—1936)
American clergyman and author.
(On the planet Earth, in a speech in New York City [17 November 1935].)

How inappropriate to call this planet
Earth when it is clearly Ocean.
--Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917—2008)
English science-fiction writer.
Quoted in "Nature" [8 March 1990].

The new electronic interdependence recreates
the world in the image of a global village.
--H. (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan (1911—1980)
Canadian professor and author.
In _The Gutenberg Galaxy_ [1962].

We do not inherit the Earth from our parents,
we borrow it from our children.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupιry (1900—1944)
French novelist.

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall.
He will end by destroying the earth.
--Albert Schweitzer (1875—1965)
Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor.
In the Introduction to _Silent Spring_ [1962] by Rachel Carson.

If other worlds are inhabited, this world
must be their lunatic asylum.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]

We are pilgrims, not settlers; this
earth is our inn, not our home.
--John H. Vincent (1832—1920)
American bishop.

Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to
realize you. . . . Do any human beings ever
realize life while they live it? — every, every
minute?
--Thornton Wilder (1897—1975)
American novelist and dramatist.
"Our Town" [1938], act III



EASTERNERS

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see "PEOPLE" for related links


Something of the code of the Southern
gentleman has survived and differentiates
us...Southerners can be insulted. With
some Easterners, it's impossible.
--Shelby Foote (1916—2005)
American author.

Sometimes I think this country would be better off if
we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let
it float out to sea.
--Barry Goldwater (1909—1998)
American conservative politician.
In _Washington Star_ [3 December 1961].




EATING

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see "FOOD & DRINK" for related links


We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
He may live without books, — what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope, — what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love, —what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
--Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803—1873)
British novelist and politician.

Some have meat and cannot eat,
Some cannot eat that want it;
But we have meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
--Robert Burns (1759—1796)
Scottish poet and songwriter.
"The Kirkudbright Grace" [1790]
aka "The Selkirk Grace"

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605—1615], ch. XXIV

The only time to eat diet food is while
you're waiting for the steak to cook.
--Julia Child (1912—2004)
American chef, television personality, and author.

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
[Latin:, Esse oportet ut vivas, non vivere ut edas.]
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.

Subdue your appetites my dears, and
you've conquered human nature.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
_Nicholas Nickleby_, ch. 5 [1839]

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
--Fanny Fern [Sarah Willis] (1811—1872)
American newspaper columnist.

I saw few die of Hunger, of Eating, 100000.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1736]

I do wish we could chat longer, but
I'm having an old friend for dinner.
--Thomas Harris (1940— ) & Ted Tally (1952— )
"The Silence of the Lambs" [1991 film]

I want every peasant to have a chicken in
his pot on Sundays.
[French: Je veux que le dimanche chaque
paysan ait sa poule au pot.]
--Henri IV [Henry of Naverre] (1553—1610)
King of France [1589—1610].

The eyes are bigger than the belly.
--George Herbert (1593—1633)
English religious poet.

To rise at six, to dine at ten,
To sup at six, to sleep at ten,
Makes a man live for ten times ten.
--Inscription on Victor Hugo's study

Statistics show that of those who contract
the habit of eating, very few survive.
--Wallace Irwin (1875—1959)
American editor and writer of sketches.

The only way to eat well in England is
to have breakfast three times a day.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.

-

To eat ravenously as I do is not only
unseemly: it is bad for your health,
and indeed for your pleasure. In my
haste I often bite my tongue and
occasionally bite my fingers. When
Diogenes came across a boy who
was eating like that he slapped his
tutor.

There were instructors in Rome who
taught how to masticate and
perambulate graciously. By eating
thus I lose an occasion for talking,
which is such a fine seasoning at
the table — provided that both the
meal and the topics are pleasant
and brief.

--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essays_, Book III [1580], Ch.13

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If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is
not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine,
the Cantonese will eat it.
--Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921— )
Consort of Queen Elizabeth II.
1986 remark quoted in
"Long line of princely gaffes", BBC [1 March 2002].

He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath
put all of my substance into that fat belly of his.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_King Henry IV_ [1597], pt. 2, act 2, sc. 1, l.74

We each day dig our graves with our teeth.
--Samuel Smiles (1812—1904)
Scottish author.
_Duty_ [1880]

The rest of the world lives to eat, while I eat to live.
--Socrates (470?—399 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
Quoted in Diogenes Laertius _Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers_.

Put not another bite into your mouth till the
former be swallowed; let not your morsels be
too big [for the mouth].
--George Washington (1732—1799)
American general and commander-in-chief of the
colonial armies in the American Revolution [1775—1783]
and first president of the United States [1789—1797].
(At age 16, in his copybook "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior
in Company and Conversation," Rule #97.)

My wife is a light eater; as soon
as it's light, she starts eating.
--Henny Youngman (1906—1998)
English-born American stand-up comedian.

-

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.
--Alka-Seltzer advertising slogan


Mama Mia, that's a spicy meatball!
--Alka-Seltzer advertising slogan

-

-----

abstemious [ab-STEE-mee-uhs], adjective:
1. Sparing in eating and drinking; temperate; abstinent.
2. Sparingly used or consumed; used with temperance or
moderation.
3. Marked by or spent in abstinence.
Synonyms: abstinent, teetotal, temperate.

borborygm (noun) [bor-bκ-'rig-κm]
The gurgling sounds made by the stomach after eating.

cloy (verb) ['kloy]
1/ To oversatiate with rich food, to overfeed, to cause
nausea by overfeeding with delicious, rich food;
2/ To oversatiate with anything otherwise pleasant
to the point it becomes unpleasant.

crapulence (Noun) ['krζp-yκ-lκns]
Sickness from immoderate eating or drinking; indulgence
of one's appetites to the point of nausea.

dyspepsia (noun)
Disturbed digestion; indigestion.
Synonyms: indigestion, upset stomach

edacious [i-DAY-shus], adj.:
Given to eating; voracious; devouring.

epicure [EP-ih-kyur], noun:
1. a person who enjoys eating and drinking and who is
very particular in choosing fine foods and beverages;
gourmet.
2. a person who is fond of luxury and pleasure.

esculent (adj.) ['es-kyκ-lκnt]
Edible, eatable, able to be eaten.

gourmand [goor-MAHND], noun:
1. One who eats to excess.
2. A lover of good food.
Ex.: A gourmand who zealously avoids all exercise as
'seriously damaging to one's health,' he had caviar for
breakfast and was now having oysters for lunch, whetted
with wine, as he fueled himself for a postprandial reading
at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn.
--"The Man Who Put Horace Rumpole on the Case,"
_New York Times_ [12 April 1995]

ingurgitate (verb) [in-'gκr-jκ-teyt]
To gulp, gobble, eat greedily in excessive amounts.

masticate (verb) ['mζs-tκ-keyt]
To chew or to grind to a pulp.

oligophagous (adj.) [ah-li-GAH-fuh-gus]
Feeding on few substances; usually used for insects
who feed on only a small number of plants.

orthorexia (noun) [or-thκ-'rek-si-yκ]
An uncontrolable obsession with eating the right food,
especially health food. From orthorexia nervosa "right-
appetite neurosis," parallel to "anorexia nervosa" or
"no-appetite neurosis."

postprandial [post-PRAN-dee-uhl], adjective:
Happening or done after a meal.
Ex.: "A gourmand who zealously avoids all exercise
as 'seriously damaging to one's health,' he had
caviar for breakfast and was now having oysters
for lunch, whetted with wine, as he fueled himself
for a postprandial reading at the Montauk Club in
Brooklyn."
--Mel Gussow,
"The Man Who Put Horace Rumpole on the Case,"
_New York Times_ [12 April 1995]

repletion
ih-PLEE-shun, noun:
1. The condition of being completely filled or supplied.
2. Excessive fullness, as from overeating.
Ex.: With distended belly and bursting waistcoat, his
eyes glazed with repletion, he picks listlessly at his
teeth with a fork.
--Kenneth Rose,
"Madness of King George's son,"
_Daily Telegraph_, [14 November 1998]

trencherman (noun)
A hearty eater.
Synonyms: glutton, gourmand

voracity (noun) [vo-'rζ-sκ-ti]
An enormous appetite, uncontrollable hunger, ravenousness.
voracious: adj.
voraciously: adv.



ECONOMICS / ECONOMY (THE)
Click picture to ZOOM

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see "CAPITALISM" for related links
see "MONEY" for related links


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I define a recession as when your neighbor loses his
job, but a depression is when you lose your own.
--Dave Beck (1894—1993)
American labor leader.
Quoted in "Time" [22 February 1954].

& see:

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his
job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
In "Observer" [13 April 1958].

-

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.
--Aneurin Bevan (1897—1960)
British Labour politician.
In Michael Foot _Aneurin Bevan_ [1962], vol. 1, ch. 3.

1/ You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2/ You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3/ You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
4/ You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
5/ You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer
down.
6/ You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your
income.
7/ You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class
hatred.
9/ You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's
initiative and independence.
8/ You cannot establish social security on borrowed money.
10/ You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what
they could and should do for themselves.
--Rev. William John Henry Boetcker (1873—1962)
German-born American minister and author.
"The Industrial Decalogue" [1916]

There are those who believe that if you will only
legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous,
their prosperity will leak through on those below.
The Democratic idea, however, has been that if
you make the masses prosperous, their prosperity
will find its way up through every class which
rests upon them.
--William Jennings Bryan (1860—1925)
American Democratic and Populist politician
who ran for the presidency three times.
without success.
In his "Cross of Gold" speech at the Democratic
Party National Convention, Chicago [8 July 1896].

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Your Majesty knows that his finances were
reduced to 23 million livres in 1661 ... [but] within
two years increased to 58 and then 70 million livres.
During those nine years of abundance, administration
and expenditure were based on this ... This year I
find that abundance has disappeared because of
the increased expenditure and problems in getting
money out of the provinces ...

Your Majesty thinks of war ten times more than he
thinks of his finances ... [but if war occurs] it will
oblige us to begin using the revenues of coming
years.

--Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619—1683)
Controller general of finance and secretary of state
for the navy under Louis XIV of France.
(Memorandum to the King) [1670].


I believe that it is only the abundance of money in a state
which makes a difference to its greatness and its power.
It is certain that by means of manufactures, a million
people who languish in idleness will gain their
livelihood.
--Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619—1683)
Controller general of finance and secretary of state
for the navy under Louis XIV of France.
_Memoir on Commerce, A Document Presented to the King_ [3 August 1664]

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Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the
ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars
when you had hair.
--attributed to Sam Ewing (1920—2001)
American writer and humorist.

Necessity never made a good bargain.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1735]

-

The only function of economic forecasting
is to make astrology look respectable.
--John Galbraith (1908—2006)
American economist.


To bring monetary policy to bear against inflation, the Federal
Reserve [Board] discourages the lending of money by the banks.
This is accomplished by raising interest rates and by increasing
the banks' reserve requirements — the cash they must hold in
reserve — so that they have less money to lend.
--John Kenneth Galbraith (1908—2006)
American economist.
_A Life in Our Times: Memoirs_ [1981], ch. 22

-

Balancing the budget is like going to heaven.
Everybody wants to do it, but nobody wants
to do what you have to do to get there.
--Phil Gramm (1942— )
American Republican politician.
In a television interview [16 September 1990].

You ought to shoot all the economists
and elect a couple of historians.
--Ernest Hollings (1922— )
American politician and Democratic Senator [1966-2005].

The merchants will manage the better, the more
they are left free to manage themselves.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to Gideon Granger [13 August 1800].

^

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American politician, 35th President of
the United States [1961—1963]

Shortly after Kennedy blocked the hike in steel
prices in 1961, he was visited by a businessman
who expressed wariness about the national
economy. 'Things look great,' said JFK. 'Why,
if I wasn't President, I'd be buying stock myself.'

'If you weren't President,' said the businessman,
'so would I.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler,
no surer means of overturning the existing basis
of society than to debauch the currency. The
process engages all the hidden forces of
economic law on the side of destruction, and
does it in a manner which not one man in a
million is able to diagnose.
--John Maynard Keynes (1883—1946)
English economist.
_The Economic Consequences of the Peace_ ch. 6 [1919]

-

I heard an author on C-SPAN-2 Saturday [in 2003] afternoon
talking about this very thing: "the rich get richer and the
poor get poorer." His general point:

It isn't actually true, you know. The poor also get richer.
Consider: A century or so ago, the rich man had a horsedrawn
carriage, the poor man walked. Big difference in how far and
how fast one traveled. Today, the rich man may drive a Rolls,
while the poor man drives a Ford. Not as much difference,
they both get where they need to go just as fast. A century
ago, the rich man lived to 65 or so, the poor man died at 45.
Today, the rich man lives to 80, the poor man to 75. Not such
a big difference. A century ago, the rich man had servants
running to bring him hot and cold water, and remove his
thundermug, while the poor man went to the well himself,
and the outhouse. Today, the only difference is in the cost
of the fixtures at the end of the plumbing, and the kind of
decor in the room around the plumbing. Not such a difference.
Then, a rich man was patron to professionals who entertained
him when he wished, while the poor either stood outside and
listened, or entertained themselves. Today, we all listen to
the same professional entertainment over the same electronic
media, and if the rich have a bigger room with more powerful
speakers and a bigger screen, it is still not such a big
difference.

This was much paraphrased from memory, since I couldn't
transcribe his talk, and I didn't write down his name....
This comparison could be extended many other places, the
exercise is left to the student. Yes, there are differences
in income between people. There always will be. Get over it!
If you really want it bad enough to do WHATEVER IS NECESSARY,
you can place yourself anywhere you wish along that line.
Those people at the upper end of that line did so. Whether
you are so willing, or not, stop asking me to contribute
part of my effort to reduce your effort. My effort is
directed at placing myself where I want on that line.

--David C Kifer, alt.quotations

-

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
--Dwight Morrow (1873—1931)
American lawyer, banker, and diplomat.
"San Francisco News" [1 June 1949]

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The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00

There's a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage
is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a
substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job
market.

--editorial in the _New York Times_ [14 January 1987]

-

Expenditure rises to meet income.
--C. Northcote Parkinson (1909—1993)
English writer.
_The Law and the Profits_ [1960]

A 'mixed economy' disintegrates a country into
an institutionalized civil war of pressure groups,
each fighting for legislative favors and special
privileges at the expense of one another.
--Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
Russian-born American writer.
_Global Balkanization_

-

In this present crisis, government is not the
solution to our problem. Government is the
problem.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
Speaking of inflation and unemployment, in his first
inaugural address [20 January 1981].


Government's view of the economy could be summed
up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it
keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,
subsidize it.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
In 1986.

-

-

If a nation is living within its income, its credit is good.
If in some crisis it lives beyond its income for a year
or two it can usually borrow temporarily on reasonable
terms. But if, like the spendthrift, it throws discretion
to the winds, is willing to make no sacrifice at all in
spending, extends its taxing to the limit of the people's
power to pay, and continues to pile up deficits, it is
on the road to bankruptcy.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
In a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [19 October 1932].


I believe, I have always believed, and I will always
believe in private enterprise as the backbone of
economic well-being in America.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
In a speech in Chicago [14 October 1936].


The first theory is that if we make the rich richer,
somehow they will let a part of their prosperity
trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory
... was the theory that if we make the average of
mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity
will rise upward ... through the ranks.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
[2 October 1932] _Public Papers_ v. 1 [1938] p. 772

-

If we are brought face to face with the naked
issue of either keeping or totally destroying a
prosperity in which the majority share, but in
which some share improperly, why, as sensible
men, we must decide that it is a great deal
better that some people should prosper too
much than that no one should prosper enough.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].
In a speech in Fitchburg, Massachusetts [2 September 1902].

Wall Street indexes predicted nine
out of the last five recessions.
--Paul Samuelson (1915— )
American economist,
winner of the 1970 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Column in "Newsweek" [19 September 1966].

Entrepreneurial profit . . . is the expression of the value
of what the entrepreneur contributes to production in
exactly the same sense that wages are the value
expression of what the worker 'produces.' It is not
a profit of exploitation any more than are wages.
--Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883—1950)
Morovian-born American economist and sociologist.

Wall Street Lays an Egg.
--Sime Silverman (1873—1933)
Founder and editor of "Variety."
News headline in _Variety_ following
the stock market crash [October 1929].

-

Washington, D. C.
A tour guide was showing a tourist around Washington, D. C. The guide
pointed out the place where George Washington supposedly threw a dollar
across the Potomac River. "That's impossible," said the tourist. "No one
could throw a coin that far!" "You have to remember," answered the
guide. "A dollar went a lot farther in those days."

-


TOPICAL

Here's my question: If millions of high-paying jobs are leaving the
country only to be replaced by millions of low-paying jobs, what
prediction would you make about the trend in our standard of
living? It would have to be in steep decline, but the facts don't
square with that. Per capita GDP, the population divided into the
value of goods and services produced, is one of the methods used
to gauge the standard of living. The historical trend, including today,
is a rising American standard of living. In fact, our per capita GDP
in 1980 was $21,500 and, as of 2002, it was $36,000 - a 59
percent increase. So how can it be that we're becoming a nation
of low-pay hamburger flippers?

How about this pronouncement: The rich are getting richer, and the
poor are getting poorer? The Census Bureau just came out with a
report saying that 35 million Americans are living in poverty. Robert
Rector and Kirk A. Johnson addressed this figure in their recent
publication "Understanding Poverty in America," produced by the
Washington-based Heritage Foundation. From various government
reports they find that: 46 percent of poor households actually own
their homes; 76 percent have air conditioning; the typical poor
American has more living space than the average non-poor
individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other
cities in Europe; nearly 75 percent of poor households own one
car, and 30 percent own two or more cars; 97 percent have at
least one color television; 62 percent have cable or satellite
reception; and 25 percent have cell phones.

[. . . ]

How many times have we heard that the rich are getting richer,
and the poor are getting poorer? Contrary to that nonsense, the
fact of the matter is that some of the rich are getting poorer,
and many of the poorer are getting richer.

According to the 1995 Annual Report of the Federal Reserve Bank
of Dallas, only 5 percent of those in the bottom 20 percent category
of income earners in 1975 were still there in 1991. What happened
to them? A majority made it to the top 60 percent of the income
distribution — middle class or better — over that 16-year span.
Almost 29 percent of them rose to the top 20 percent.

--Walter E. Williams (1936— )
American Professor of economics and journalist.
"How Can It Be" [2004]
[Dr. Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor
of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.]

-

-

To the editor:

I am so happy our country has finally seen the light and turned socialist. Now we can all reap the benefits of our collective labors. We are even rewarding deserving people for their failures. We have started with the CEOs of the banking industry and now are working with the failing auto industry.

I just know that eventually we will get around to helping out working folks who may have fallen on hard times through their own misdeeds, just as we have for the bankers and brokers.

I need just one thing. I made a small error. Nothing big like a banker or auto executive. My friend Vinnie gave me $1,000 to hold for him. I decided to invest the money in chip derivatives at the local casino. It seems the gaming table had a meltdown in value and I lost the money.

Now Vinnie is angry with me and wants to do something to my kneecaps. Can I please have my bailout money before the new year? Otherwise I might suffer a collapse.

--Sal Molinari
"Letter to the editor"
_Las Vegas Review Journal_ 16 December 2008]

-

Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix
something that wasn’t broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a
crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the
outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines.
--Maxine Waters (1938— )
American politician.
At a 2004 Congressional hearing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any
kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the
more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms
of affordable housing.
--Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
American politician.
[11 September 2003]

-

-

"There Is No Upside to a Down Economy"
Todd G. Buchholz
_The Wall Street Journal_
[5 June 2009]

I have no sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. "I Deserve Four Bedrooms and a Jacuzzi," the couple who saved no money, put no money down and moved into a McMansion -- from which they are now sneaking out. And yet I have grown weary of all the scolds who are treating Americans like naughty dogs, rolling up newspapers and smacking them on the snouts, shouting: "Bad American! Bad consumer! Stop spending! Get yourself a small car, a small house, or -- even better -- a pup tent in a national park!"

Maybe amid the financial wreckage we feel a natural yearning to go back to simpler times. But some of our commentators have taken this urge a little far. In April, the Chronicle of Higher Education carried an article subtitled "The Gift of Financial Insecurity," noting that, as a result of the crisis, "perhaps Americans can now begin to temper their ingrained optimism with a more elegiac sensibility." In a sweeping Time cover story, Kurt Andersen told readers that "it's time to ratchet back our wild and crazy grasshopper side and get in touch with our inner ant." Baron Layard, a British economist and the author of "Happiness: Lessons From a New Science," seems to think that we would be better off psychologically if we erased a few more zeroes from our bank accounts. After all, he says, "extra income has done so little to produce a happier society, there must be something quite wasteful about much of it." And if you type the word "affluenza" into Amazon's search engine, you'll come up with four books and a PBS special bemoaning our rise from poverty.

None of this is new, of course. "Small Is Beautiful" by E.F. Schumacher was a book that millions of undergraduates had to read in the 1970s, until roughly the time Jimmy Carter gave his fireside "malaise" speech in a cardigan sweater and looked so sad that the fire went out. Mr. Schumacher, the world's first German-born, Buddhist-British economist, argued for "enoughness," a Buddhist view that we should get by with far less. For Mr. Schumacher, modern society "requires so much and accomplishes so little." True, until you consider that in 1900 life expectancy was just 47 years.

In fact, small is not necessarily better, and there is a difference between a simpler life and the life of a simpleton. At what point in time should we declare: "Stop. Enough progress. Let's keep things simple"? Would 1 B.C. have been a good time to hit "pause"? Or July 3, 1776? Or on the eve of the 1964 Civil Rights vote? It's a good thing Teddy Roosevelt did not lock us into the standard of living of 1904 or we would never fly on airplanes, get a polio vaccination or expect to live past the age of 50. With all due respect to medicine men, who did sometimes come across valuable herbal tonics, it was daring science, not the jungle, that produced Jonas Salk. Grants from the Mellon Foundation helped, too.

Without the progress of the 20th century, Milton Berle said, we'd all be watching television by candlelight. (Of course, postal delivery might be roughly the same.) The point is that we cannot know what we could be missing by halting our climb to toward affluence, any more than Emperor Joseph II could help Mozart by declaring that his opera had "too many notes."

And there is something unfair about decrying consumption at this stage in the game. Even if we simplify our lives and forswear "extra income," we will still benefit from centuries of innovation and wealth-creation that others have yet to enjoy. Make no mistake: To embrace the small-is-beautiful ethos is to crank up the drawbridge and leave a crocodile-infested moat between elites who already own Viking ranges and the masses yearning to gain access to indoor plumbing. Never mind that in the past 20 years, thanks in part to the explosion of American consumption, hundreds of millions of people around the world, now with jobs to meet U.S. import demands, have eaten three meals in one day -- for the very first time in their lives. This is a War on Poverty that we are winning! Snobs would rather downsize and turn victory into defeat.

As for the simple life, its charms wear off fast. Many tourists have tramped around Walden Pond snapping photos, but few would take seriously what Thoreau would probably advise today: to throw away our BlackBerrys and start growing real berries.

And yet there are plenty of books on happiness urging us to do something like that: to surrender our raw capitalistic drives and to leave the rat-race before the entire world turns into a Habitrail. I would argue that it is the excitement of competition -- sloppy, risky and tense -- that brings us happiness. It is the pursuit of knowledge, money and status that releases dopamine and ignites our passion. Neuroscientists report that when a person begins to take a risk, whether gambling on roulette or ginning up the nerve to ask a pretty girl to the prom, his left prefrontal cortex lights up, signaling a natural "high." Alpha waves and oxygenated blood rush to the brain. Sitting alone in a pup tent does not yield the same effects.

Humans have competed ever since Cain picked up a rock and knocked Abel on the head. And, from a historical point of view, the idea of competition has not imprisoned us but liberated us, psychologically and materially. I write this at St. John's College, Cambridge, just a few blocks from the pub where Watson and Crick interrupted lunch to announce they had found "the secret of life" (the DNA double helix). They were driven by beer, moxie, ego and competitiveness.

As Albert O. Hirschman noted in his book "The Passion and the Interests," traditional societies believed that the noble classes living in the castles were composed of fundamentally different kinds of humans from the rest of us. Kings and queens, it was thought, should pursue their passions, whereas the rest of us should just tend our sheep, drink ale and forget about the mannered and manored life. But all that changed with the rise of democracy and industrial society -- and the arrival of a broad "affluence." Now is no time to send ourselves back to a life of simple serfdom.

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