We are enjoying sluggish times and not enjoying them very much.
Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.
In a society of little economic development, universal inactivity accompanies universal poverty. You survive not by struggling against nature, or by increasing production, or by relentless labor; instead you survive by expending as little energy as possible, by striving constantly to achieve a state of immobility.
So-called austerity, the stoic injunction, is the path towards universal destruction. It is the old, the fatal, competitive path. Pull in your belt is a slogan closely related to gird up your loins, or the guns-butter metaphor.
Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.
If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.