All of the fools clamoring for increased spending and mocking those arguing that cutting tax-rates is the best long-term strategy are fascinating to me. In a morbid way. They seem entirely ignorant of history (and usually economics, too--which is odd because they are financial commentators).
Anyway, these people are perfect examples of the anti-conceptual faculty. Ayn Rand said of the anti-conceptual mentality:
Everything is self-evident and short-range to this kind of mentality. The immediately perceivable is the whole of reality. That is why, if you watch the financial shows on the news networks, you will see an endless stream of people acknowledging that, yes, cutting the tax rate and cutting government spending may be the best decision long-term (they don't know exactly why, they just heard someone say it), but they want to feel better now.The main characteristic of this mentality is a special kind of passivity: not passivity as such and not across-the-board, but passivity beyond a certain limit—i.e., passivity in regard to the process of conceptualization and, therefore, in regard to fundamental principles. It is a mentality which decided, at a certain point of development, that it knows enough and does not care to look further. What does it accept as “enough”? The immediately given, directly perceivable concretes of its background . . . [emphasis mine]
These people are actually willing to sacrifice long-term economic stability for a quick burst of large-scale wealth redistribution ("stabilization" they call it, the fools). A burst that will almost certainly do long-term damage itself, not to mention set a dangerous precedent for government intervention into the economy. But that doesn't matter: it's too far down the road to affect the anti-conceptual mentality.
From the migraine field--
Matt
