30 million Americans on food stamps, while CEOs who have run their businesses into the ground walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars, each.

Does the GOP understand the preconditions that lead to revolutions, and their part in creating these?

Or the government can spend money and expand aggregate demand, while also spending money to provide food stamps and other sorts of aid, and in this way get the job done by collective, socialized methods rather than by relying on individual acts of charity. The federalized method is surer and probably more moral, as it spreads the costs according to law and makes sure that the amount of aid is sufficient. In other words, we live in a post-Keynesian age, and we don't have to rely on 1933 era systems of doubtful effect. That seems to be what Keynes was actually saying, anyway.

Yes, Bob G. The US reliance upon philantrophy is just a poor (literally) substitute for properly instituted government run programs.

The philantrophy alleviates burning consciences, ensures tax breaks, and does very little to achieve longer term repairs of the underlying, systemic problems. In fact, philantrophy depends upon misery for its raison d'etre ...

Generosity and social solidarity, yes, by all means. But let's not forget that Keynes is the darling and preferred model of the scatterbrained Right who got the country into this mess with their supply-side economics and free-market policies.

I'm not an economist myself, and I haven't read Keynes - I've only seen his teachings quoted by conservatives, and doubtless his economic models were departed from in some ways. Still, I'd be hesitant about looking for the policies of some wonk to get me out of a mess when his policies are those that got me into it. I remember no less a bright spark than Bush telling everybody to go shopping; spend, spend, spend. That's fine for him - he's got plenty of money, and plenty more where it came from. He can afford to be a dolt. Most people can't, and at some point, everyone agrees the American people are going to need savings.

Give what you can to help your fellow citizens, but outside that, look after yourself and your family. The business and retail sectors are still going to charge as much as the market will bear as soon as they've dug themselves out of this crisis, or been bailed out. They're not going to thank you for saving them.

Technical request:

I read the RSS feed of this blog on Google Reader, and there your block quotes do not display correctly: only the first paragraph of a block quote is correctly formatted, while the following paragraphs are left-justified at the same margin as the body of the post. It can be especially confusing in a post like this one, which uses multiple long block quotes.

It's always been like that, and I had just learned to live with it, but this week Ezra Klein was informed that his blog had the same problem, and he was able to fix it by changing the way he used html tags in his posts. So it's possible. I'd be grateful if you could look into this; it would make the WM blog, which I value, much easier to read.

Thanks.

To satisfy the Republican worshipers of St. Ronald
Reagan: Put his face on food stamps.

"Generosity and social solidarity, yes, by all means. But let's not forget that Keynes is the darling and preferred model of the scatterbrained Right who got the country into this mess with their supply-side economics and free-market policies."

Actually, he's the darling of the left. Part of the left, anyways.

I don't see why we should have to choose between charity and government stimulus. I favor both.

It would be well to remember that charitable giving as a proprtion of income is higher from the lower income strata of US society than the top. This contradicts economic theoretical assumptions about disposable income, or marginal propensity to consume, but not the greed of the biggest earners.

If you have any doubts about the level of hunger and malnutrition in our affluent country, it's no at all hard to google. This poignant and informed article is from a high school student.

That should be "...noT at all hard...." of course.

Mark, if you have any doubts, read Keynes. He's what helped lead to the fairly successful, post-Bretton Woods, decades long, economic growth management of the West and Japan. And he wasn't just theoretical, he was a successful investor. It's since we left his precepts that things have gone really wrong.

All the levers we are now pulling to right the economy are based around Keynesian theory. It's unfortunate that those pulling the levers do not believe in Keynesian economics -- it's antithetical to the free-market meme -- and so are not doing the best job of it.

I just gave $20 to the local St. Vincent de Paul Society-- it's amazing how much they do with little. According to the lady I spoke to my little contribution will go towards stocking their pantry with peanut butter and jelly. She says many people don't yet qualify for school lunches for their kids, but don't have money to pay for them, so some of the most requested items are things they can make lunches with, and pb&j lasts a long time after opening.

Concentration of wealth.
Few can spare charity and when the ultra rich gove 5%, they can claim they give far more than most.

Apples and oranges.
1% of a low salary produces the pain of 60% of a high one.

No wealthy person sees it as their job to give so much when their peers are self-satisfied with that 5%.

To some degree, they're right. Fortunately, the socialist society sees fit to rob everyone a little to insure survival of the neediest.

Some question whether this goal is worthwhile, but they forget that those needy have a say in whether the goal is needy or not. People tend not to have the common decency to crawl off and quietly die somewhere. Unpleasant things happen first.