The Angry Exile: Filling a lake, Keynesian style.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

Filling a lake, Keynesian style.

Via the ALS blog I've just come across the best demolition job I've seen on the whole idea of stimulus, quantitive easing, nicking even more money from taxpayers and spunking it away at random, call it what you will. It's in a transcript of an interview with Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, that aired last night on ABC's Lateline program. The whole thing is worth a read despite what look like a couple of annoying transcription errors ("government 'limbed' to the Constitution" - 'limited' surely) but there's one part that really caught my attention, and that's a very simple explanation about why government stimulus is flawed.

LEIGH SALES: Is it a good idea to be cutting spending when America's economy is still weak. Because there is of course the counter-argument that the economy needs to be stimulated, it needs to be stimulated by the government?

GROVER NORQUIST: Yes. Um, this is a very interesting argument that the government's gonna take a dollar from somebody who earned it, either in taxes or debt and give it to somebody who's politically connected. And if you do this 800 billion times there'll be more money in the country.
If you take water from one side of the lake and put it back into the other side of the lake in front of the cameras, that there's more water. It doesn't work, it isn't true. We've wasted almost a trillion dollars and nothing has happened. It's time to stop wasting money.

This is what governments and their spendthrift supporters have been trying to tell people - that taking water from one side of the lake and pouring it into the other somehow makes more water, and that's clearly bollocks even to a six year old. Sure, some would say that the money is actually from borrowing and so there really is more water, but that's simply taking the water from the stream that feeds the lake instead of the lake itself. You do have more water right now but less water will come in the future than would have if you'd left things alone. Anything governments borrow must be repaid, and one way or another it is the taxpayers who must repay it.

Now, could someone put it in a join the dots book and give it to Red Ed (for a giggle - if he gets it he won't be allowed to make anything of it) and the twins and their pal Georgie over on the government benches? But don't waste your time with Vince Cable, eh.

NB - this is a repost of an identical post earlier today which lacked a comment link because of a setting I'd fiddled with and hadn't put back.