“deep thoughts” on television shows I watch or used to watch
The Simpsons via last.fm
1. Deadwood, aside from being far too foul-mouthed for my taste (and a bad influence on me) was pretty good the first season. After that it totally fell apart. I think this was because of the producers’ (and especially David Milch’s) urge to cast Ian McShane’s character, Al Swearengen, as a “good guy” in the final seasons rather than the more villainous role he plays in the first season.
2. I like The Tudors for its historical qualities. The English reformation is a fascinating period. But I get awfully tired of King Henry. At first I kind of liked how he was played, but he’s become entirely too flat.
3. Weeds lost me after the second season. Why does every episode need to end with some huge, dramatic cliff-hanger disaster? Why can’t some episodes just be funny?
4. Is The Wire really that good? I’ve seen one, maybe two episodes. Didn’t really capture my attention.
5. I almost stopped watching The Office after the third season. I’m glad I didn’t.
6. I’ll take The Simpsons over the Family Guy any day of the week.
7. I like South Park but I really, really don’t get this whole “generation Y conservatism” thing. What – are we basing the next generation of conservatives off of some potty-mouthed cartoon? (I know, South Park is very good at lampooning liberals. But remember, when asked, the creators said “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals.” Okay. But they hate conservatives, too. Is generation Y conservatism actually…libertarianism?)
8. If you have a toddler in the house you should introduce them to The Wiggles. Not for your own sake. Australian kids music is not the most enjoyable thing for adults. But kids seem to love it, or at least my kid does. And it’s not Barney, so….
9. I’m still debating whether to continue watching Mad Men or not. What say you?
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November 4, 2009 42 Comments
Richard Posner, Keynesian
Richard Posner has an interesting essay on John Maynard Keynes in The New Republic. I’m still trying to untangle all the various ideas and contradictions implicit in this economic downturn. There are many competing visions which all have merit. That the stimulus and bailouts seem to have helped, I think is true, but what and who they have helped is another question. Whether they will do much for working (or unemployed) Americans is harder to say.
Consumer debt is high, and with plummeting home values, rising unemployment, and falling wages, the road to recovery is hardly obvious. We may be in something of a balance-sheet recession, but I think it goes beyond that, and it’s made all the worse by the housing burst. As consumer spending continues to fall – due both to people hoarding over uncertainty, to lost equity, and to people paying down personal debt – so does employment. As employment falls uncertainty rises, consumer spending drops off, and we find ourselves in a spiral. Decreased spending leads to higher unemployment leads to decreased spending and so on and so forth. Furloughs and wage cuts force people to limit spending, which leads to more furloughs, more wage cuts, and increased unemployment. It goes on and on.
At this point, Keynes would argue that the government should intervene – that it should replace consumer spending with government spending in order to keep employment numbers high. When the spiral is ended, and spending and employment have returned to normal levels then the government will have served its purpose. Business as usual can resume.
As Posner writes:
September 24, 2009 7 Comments
