Learning From Our Mistakes

Next time you're wondering what to do with your leftover spaghetti, throw it against the wall. As the noodles slide to the floor in front of you, you'll have a perfect picture of our economy. "We’re not going to have another Great Depression; with government throwing trillions in spaghetti against the wall via new stimulus and bank rescue plans, enough will stick, however imperfectly, to avoid calamity," Matt Miller, author of the new Tyranny of Dead Ideas, writes in Politico. Miller, who hosts the radio show Left, Right and Center on KCRW, argues that we must use historical precedent to revisit the role of government if we're going to fix any of our problems today. For example, Miller writes we need to reevaluate our beliefs that our children should earn more than we do, that free trade is a good idea, and that employers should cover health care. "Unless we explode the dead ideas I'm talking about in the book, we won't find our way back to a durable prosperity," Miller told NPR.