"Show Proof"

In art everybody draws the model differently, but in math everyone agrees on a single answer. Economics is akin to math, though its numbers change values at different rates, and sometimes alter base assumptions to reveal new patterns. That said, we should be demanding “show proof” of every official. To Gov. Perry: How can a 71 year-old program for the retired, disabled, and survivors that never missed a payment, with a $3.2 trillion self-funded trust and 100% solvency for the next 37 years, never tax adjusted for rising incomes be a “Ponzi scheme?”

Jacob Lawrence, The Female Worker.

Because honestly, the economics doesn't matter to those in media and power. Their meme is a false equity of all-points-of-view, weighed toward the Great Fears. We hear about invisible and non-existent evils. Inflation. Debt unbearable. President's fault. Workers overreaching. We don't hear about Wall Street's unsecured derivatives, mortgages whose value were a repeating Ponzi scheme, the sticky liquidity trap, halted global demand, the economic drag of poverty (now consigned to “grace of god” stories). The things that altered our base assumptions.

Monday comments found a Times reader's family story: small business, orders slowed, she's cleaning houses, her money going for groceries and to help a jobless son. Discussions of policy do have real consequences, as Rep. Clyburn said today: “Our tax code should reflect what we value as a society; current system says we value wealth more than we value work. Fundamentally unfair!”

That unfairness is represented by those who will tell you strawberries have thorns, apples worms—that danger lurks everywhere. Then calls come for more sacrifice to invisible fairies against the real threat of Congress' self-inflicted collapse.

And those in government who sacrifice the grave responsibilities of freedom, who say believe in fairies, would have us think they are fighting for truth.

The Migrant Mother. The most famous photograph in the Libary of Congress collection of 14.7 million images. Dorothea Lange, photographer.