Today and this weekend, we will contemplate our bad economy and the efforts to fix it. OK, that’s a rather depressing topic, if you will excuse the D-word, so let’s try also to find the lighter side.

We often talk about our parents and grandparents who went through the Great Depression, how to this day they scrimp and save, never throw anything away, and can delay their gratification. We also hail this “Greatest Generation” for their strong character, which was cultivated through

Notice that the advice we get for how to deal with the economic troubles is to cut back, get thrifty, and economize. But then we are told in the same newspaper that for the economy to get better, consumers have to start spending. The normal

Where our country’s economic woes hit many of us the hardest is watching our retirement funds dwindle before our eyes. This story sums up how bad it has gotten, but also offers hope for how your 401(k)s or the equivalent can recover: In a study

. . .at least let’s have one that stimulates the economy. So says economist Martin Feldstein , who maintains that much of the $800+ billion we are going to spend will have little stimulative value. Instead, he has some suggestions: Why not a temporary refundable

The bailout bill is loaded with ‘Buy American’ requirements. Isn’t that reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that pushed the already-weakened economy in the 1930s into a global depression? The problem with protectionism is that it causes other countries to raise barriers of their own, cutting

George Will, in a column about how no one really knows what they are doing in trying to fix the economy, points out the role of metaphors in our economic thinking: Economic policymaking in turbulent times is a science of single instances, meaning no science