A great deal of ink as been expended of late to demonstrate that we could have eventually recovered from the Great Depression without the government and therefore should just wait this one out - now that we have rescued the financial sector and saved the money supply.

There is something to this argument. The New Deal, for all of the fanfare and conservative whining, was an anemic program that carefully minded the sensitivities of the rich and sought not to compete with them on low wage labor markets. It spent less than needed and was curtailed faster than it should have been.

World War II really was the thing that brought us out of the Depression.

Not surprisingly then one of the major works cited in these arguments appears to be a study by Price Fishback showing that consumption levels during World War II were historically low.

Duh! Wonks Anonymous knows his history and completely agrees with this one, although Dr. Fishback has doubtless nailed his conclusions down with good data and good statistical analysis. Wonks Anonymous would, however, ask the reader to remember what parents and grandparents said about WWII. Unless you were involved in the actual fighting it seems to have been considered as pretty good times.

The disparity between the evaluations of economists and the rest of us says something about economists.

To an economist the central human goal is the consumption of commodities. We make ourselves happier by consuming more of the right mix of stuff. Sure there are other goals, love, security, job satisfaction, creativity and meaningful social interaction but economists cannot think about these unless they first find some way to treat them as commodities.

More stuff happy, less stuff sad.

Which really doesn't even do justice to the economic let alone the social and political aspects of WWII:

Consider, for example, the rapid transformation of evicted sharecroppers from the South - remember the Joads in Grapes of Wrath - into skilled and semi skilled industrial workers. Consider their first exposure to health care and real schools.

Consider also the impact of real jobs for people who had experienced years of unemployment and the opportunities that these jobs provided to everyone to replenish their depleted savings.

Of course there was rationing and nobody, not even the rich, could buy a new car. Still Wonks Anonymous would argue that the coordinated national effort set the stage for a national psychological and economic recovery.

Maybe we need the same thing now. But let's try to skip the war.