Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
Lots of reaction out there so I'll eschew the main stuff and just mention a couple remarks that I thought were canny, politically, and demonstrated that Team Obama is paying attention to the chatter in the mainstream media.
First there was this, which seemed to address the recent acceleration of the stock market's journey downward into the crapper and the talk that it reflects uneasiness about Obama's economic plan (as opposed to reflecting the fact that the country's banking system is in ruins): "I understand that on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives banks bailouts with no strings attached, and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions. But such an approach won’t solve the problem."
Then there was this, which came after Obama cited some historical examples of government action in response to crisis and which served to knock down the canard that massive public spending is undesirable now because it will crowd out private spending: "In each case, government didn’t supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive."
In normal economic times, critics of public spending might have a point. But not now.
