In a stew over the economic muddle

By PAUL HAIST

article created on: 2008-10-15T00:00:00

Here at the Jewish Review we don’t support or oppose political candidates. It has to do with our non-profit status, which seems proper. 
 
That said, current events have made me long for something in the race for the White House.
 

Just now, more than anything else in this election, I want a candidate with clarity of vision on the economic crisis. I don’t expect the candidates to offer a surefire solution; I likely would dismiss a candidate who did so. Just vision supported by informed analysis of what is happening and the ability to bring the nation together in support of restoring trust in our economic institutions.
 
Visionary leadership in America would, all by itself, do much to restore confidence here and around the world.
 
On the morning of Monday, Oct. 13, markets around the world opened with strong upward trends.
 
Investors and traders had time over the weekend to digest the by then somewhat coordinated international response to the economic crisis and the near-term prospect of further decisive action by the United States.
 
At last, after a succession of failed attempts, it seemed like something might be working, that something had been done that would fan the gasping embers of confidence among investors, lenders and consumers around the world. By Oct. 15 the market was headed south again, but there was still reason to hope that at least lenders might be willing to lend again.
 
Up to this time, expert after expert had been trotted out for their 15 minutes to comment on the crisis, to try to explain what was happening. Amid much pontificating on their part, I was left scratching my head over causes and consequences.
 
I think it is the case that humanity survives chiefly by muddling on through. I believe strongly in the theory of muddling on through. It has worked much of the time.
 
One expert on the Nightly Business Hour on the evening after the Oct. 13 stock market rally said that this time the govenment did what it did not do in 1929; it took swift and meaningful action with tools it did not previously have.
 
By two days later, “meaningful” bridged the gap between optimism and pessimism.
 
Muddling is like making a stew for the first time and with little or no knowledge of what to do. One knows—because one has eaten stew—what one wants to achieve, but one must think about the steps and make corrections along the way. Such a stew is a journey of discovery.
 
Franklin Roosevelt tried to make such a stew throughout The Depression. I think history has concluded that the New Deal didn’t resolve that economic cataclysm. World War II came along instead and The Depression was suddenly a bad memory.
 
But the New Deal stew put something on the table and gave people some hope during that period. Although he was far from universally supported in America, Roosevelt instilled confidence and inspired trust.
 
TV journalist Bill Moyers sat down in front of the camera at PBS the weekend before Oct. 13 with George Soros, the billionaire American financier, philanthropist and political activist who survived the Holocaust in his native Hungary. The two men talked about the economy. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the idea of free-market fundamentalism took a beating.
 
Near the end of their discussion Moyers asked Soros if there was an ideology that was not false.
 
Soros said, “I think the only one is…the recognition that all our ideas, all our human constructs have a flaw in it. And perfection is not attainable. And we must engage in critical thinking and correct our mistakes.”
 
There, I thought, is someone who could make stew without a recipe.
 
Even though we may yet be muddling through one more time, if I could take us back to the early days of the primary season, back to Iowa or New Hampshire, I might suggest someone whose vision I think is a beam of light in a crisis and who inspires not only trust, but confidence as well.

 Read the transcript of the Moyers-Soros conversation at www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10102008/transcript1.html.