My father was a typical child of the Great Depression.

He had to drop out of high school to support his family as a bell boy in a Memphis Tennessee hotel, a worker in a laundry and a desk clerk in a pawn shop. Yet he was an avid and quick reader and one of the wisest people I have ever known. One lesson he pounded, verbally, into my head was get an education; its the one thing that no one can take away from you. As I ploughed through a childhood of poverty, not having my own bed until I was in junior high school, I internalized that lesson, being the first in my family to not only graduate from college at the top of my class but going on to earn a doctorate in political science from Harvard University in

1975. I never forgot my roots in poverty and the humiliation it brought both me and my parents. It is through these eyes I view the present economic crisis. It is long past time that Americans came to their senses about how to deal with the economic disaster in which they presently find themselves. It is generally believed that the Great Depression was finally stamped out by the Second World War. At that time the United States ran deficits equal to half the Gross National Product. Only two other phenomena are connected with having an impact on ending the Depression, the New Deal and natural disasters which created the need to rebuild destroyed property and build edifices such as dams and levies. That seems to leave us with at least two distasteful alternatives. We can try to

persuade another country, perhaps China, to attack us so that we can pour money into defense industries or we can pray for some major earthquakes and hurricanes to destroy vast portions of our run down infrastructures so that we will be forced to rebuild them immediately. The Chinese probably would be reluctant to attack us because we owe them so much money. Anyway, the last Asian nation to attack US territory didnt fare so well, at least for a few decades until they made off with our steel, auto and electronics industries. We could try prayer for disaster. Evidently some people are already doing that and they have indeed may have been partially successful, Lord help us. Hurricane Irene will create construction jobs, as thousands of

homes and business were destroyed. New Jersey alone will probably create 20,000 or morenew construction jobs, for rebuilding probably more, according to NBC news. Too bad none of them will be in Eric Cantors district. He wanted to offset disaster relief with spending cuts on programs for the poor and senior citizens. As Herbert Hoover noted the cause for high unemployment is the large number of people out of work. The answer, according to Franklin Roosevelt and more recently, Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman was hire them. A few decades ago a popular proposal was to make the US Government the employer of last resort. It is a time to revisit this concept. It certainly makes more sense than paying people to either look for non-existent

jobs or simply stare at the walls for their homes. Unemployment among non-whites runs at Depression era levels. Why not draft young, unemployed men and pay them attend schools that teach the skills needed by the hundreds of thousands of vacant jobs now either unfilled or filled by foreign workers (legal and illegal)? Older unemployed skilled workers could be hired by the Government to run the programs aimed at re-retraining the youth. This would employ their information technology, management and trainingg skills. Its better than simply handing them a check. Heck, it might even work. Some might argue that we cant afford such programs and they might lead to bigger government. They might a bit of truth to

their pronouncements. One might remember, however, that Marie Antoinette shared the same view. They have no bread, let them eat cake. But we dont want to lose our heads over such pessimism. The greatest enemy of capitalism, Karl Marx, noted that the emmiseration of the poor was the natural consequence of unfettered capitalism. Marx accurately predicted that this would lead to revolution. Even today one fourth of the planets population lives under the yoke of that revolution. Faced with the options of war, natural disaster or revolution, making the Government the employer of last resort doesnt sound so scary. It sure beats riots, burning cities, and the destruction of a generation of our youth and middle class.

It seems like it may be worth a try. In any event, its better than having your head cut off.