As my colleague Andrew Syrios has made abundantly clear, he thinks Glenn Beck is a douchebag. In Andrew’s eyes, Beck comes in second place only to Keith Olbermann for the king of douchbaggery. This puts Andrew in quite a bind. Namely, if he ever runs across opinions from either douche he agrees with, it’s sure tough to use them in his articles now. So goes the cost of exposing the two biggest douches going.This is sure to happen as he has pointed out areas of general agreement with both talking heads: much of Beck’s take on domestic issues, and Olbermann’s take on foreign policy. I think I have found one such video that Andrew could get behind, unfortunately, the man in the video is none other than Glenn Lee Beck. I can see Andrew now, gritting his teeth as he sits through this, swallowing his flagrant disgust of both men. Sometimes when you’re right, you’re just right. The Depression of 1920, and the government’s response, is something more people should be acutely aware of.

Now that we can admit Hoover did more than any president before him in fighting off an economic recession, what should we conclude from this… The first time the Federal Government significantly intervenes to stop an economic downturn just happens to be at the beginning of the worst depression in American history, thus proving the government didn’t do enough?

What this whole mess elucidates is, as far as politics (and subsequently, economic policy) are concerned, actual positions are of little importance. All that matters is that you root for your team, be they Democrats or Republicans. Thus, we see Fox News begin to attack every push for increased state power, while MSNBC defends such policies. Under Bush, it was the opposite.

Inflation was thus misinterpreted as wealth, leading American consumers to borrow more and more, especially against their overvalued homes. Total mortgage debt in the United States is now around 12.5 trillion, up from $1.5 trillion in 1980! Total household debt was around 50% of GDP in 1980 and is over 100% today. And the personal saving rate was around negative 1%, for most of the last decade.

War is horrible… but it’s good for the economy. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a more dangerous myth than that. This facade has become so prevalent in the national conscience that it’s simply taken for granted… Seriously though, why would anyone actually believe this without at least a little skepticism? Wars are enormously destructive and shift resources from human needs, to human destruction.