The Federal Government has thrown its entire weight into preventing a Depression through a program of dedicated spending.  The original bailout/stimulus of $700 billion is being matched by a project budget deficit of $1,100 billion for 2009, plus whatever President Obama proposes and untold amounts of money loaned by the Federal Reserve.  All together, the total debt of $11 trillion is already similar to the size of our total economy, but we have been told that the additional borrowing is necessary to keep the economy running.

One question is rarely asked:  What happens if it doesn’t work?

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It’s a common problem in the nooze lately.  A story is told with blank objectivity over a few minutes of radio time or a several column inches of newspaper.  It may have a decent interjection of context in the form of a short history lesson or a few juicy quotes that allow the participants to describe why they did what they did.  Yet, in the end, there seems to be something missing.  The story, despite the best efforts of the reporter, still just doesn’t make sense.

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During a recent marathon of “The Twilight Zone”, my daughter and I saw the classic figure many times over.  Not Rod Serling and his smoldering cigarette, but the figure of a driven, successful young man from the black and white world of fifty years ago.  Every time a character was given the Zonal treatment for his exhaustion, tension or ennui it was a man who had made it to the top of the leading occupation of the day:  Advertising.  Clearly, this was what the industrial machine of the USofA’s Baroque Era saw as the pinnacle of success.

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