Thing One and Thing Two

"These things will not bite you.
They want to have fun.
Then, out of the box
Came Thing Two and Thing One!" 

--  Dr. Seuss, "The Cat in The Hat"

Today, Our Mr. Brooks' column is made up of bits of leftover Tyler Cowen with a side of Centrism.

According to Mr. Brooks column, here is the world I live in:

• There are exactly Two!Count!'Em!Two!And!Only!Two! Economies, which Our Mr. Brooks has helpfully labeled...Economy One and Economy Two.
• One of them has a Terminator-like commitment to ruthless efficiency which creates large profits for a few people, but few jobs.
• One of them is a little more lax about the throwing-people-into-the-maw-of-global-capitalism thing and creates more of jobs.
• America's two major political parties line up exactly with Economy One and Economy Two.
• Mr. Brooks does not know how this will all work out, but the answer will probably be... ...somewhere in the middle.

So what new information about the world I live in did I learn today?

None.

But I did learned once again that, to make his points, Our Mr. Brooks will happily amputate however much of the Truth he needs to in order to fit it snugly into into his little boxes  (For example, to make this formulation work, Our Mr. Brooks simply redefines the necessary support systems that any healthy society requires -- "heath care, education and government" -- into a single Economy Two "economic sector" which he can them counterpoise with the very efficient Economy One.  Mr. Brooks does not mention that none of our global competitors -- not even the really, really efficient ones -- are damnfool enough to treat the "heath care, education and government"  bone and sinew of their societies as just another economic sector.)

I learned for the 1,000th time that building simple, binary straw men and then deconstructing them with punditry so oversimplified that it constitutes journalistic malpractice is a good dollar.


Then our fish said, “Look! Look!” 
And our fish shook with fear. 
“Your mother is on her way home! 
Do you hear? 
Oh, what will she do to us? 
What will she say? 
Oh, she will not like it 
To find us this way!” 


“So, DO something! Fast!” said the fish. 
“Do you hear! 
I saw her. Your mother! 
Your mother is near! 
So, as fast as you can, 
Think of something to do! 
You will have to get rid of 
Thing One and Thing Two!”