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Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

Follow the logic, if you can

Usually I enjoy reading your columnists, though I don’t always agree with them. Thursday (Nov. 5), two syndicated writers showed such illogical shifts of reasoning, they simply need commenting about. Walter Williams began interestingly to detail the causes of the Great Depression, something covered recently in a multipart TV documentary that was quite eye-opening for me. But after noting that contraction of the money supply (abeted by the Federal Reserve) and trade tariffs were the primary causes back then, not the “Black Friday” stock market collapse, he lambasts the Federal Reserve now for the opposite actions taken at the behest of the best economic thinkers to insure that there would be no repeat of the 1930s.

These plans had been thought out and argued about for decades, as the Great Depression continues to be a favorite subject for study by economists.

The way forward was so clear that President George W. Bush was quick to take action right behind the Fed even though government intervention was not something he philosophically agreed with. The underlying economy is rebounding as predicted, as President Obama, the Fed and European central banks continue those policies. There is no logic behind a demand for “hands off.”

Thomas Sowell then proceeds to do the same thing in his column about the cost of medical care. He begins with simple truths about supply and demand, and affordability being unrelated to cost of production. But then he makes jumps that don’t relate to health care at all, to the gas shortages of the late ’70s (my dad tried to park his 440 cu.in. Chrysler and bought a Datsun — he couldn’t do it, and I wound up buying it when it was 10 years old and didn’t have 10,000 miles on it yet), and the service deficits of Britain’s NHS, which nobody suggests we go to, ignoring the excellent medical care and availability of most of the developed world.

He talks about the consumer self-rationing as we do with other products, choosing what we can afford. That’s fine with beef and chicken, and Cadillac and Chevrolet, but is he really suggesting that cancer patients choose bed rest and chicken soup instead of surgery and chemotherapy if that’s all they can afford?

He ignores the 30 percent insurance company profit and overhead penalty we and our employers all pay, which no other country in the world pays, even the few that have private systems like ours.

Philosophical arguments from specious bases may be good for stirring up emotions, but they don’t help to educate, inform or sway the opinions of those who follow the logic rather than the meanderings of the columnist.

Fred Brown is a resident of Macon.