This cartoon is from the Chicago Tribune, published in 1934. The guy on the ass is Rexford Tugwell, a New Deal agricultural economist. The other people in the wagon are also members of FDR's 'brain trust"--Ivy League social scientists and economists.
The sign on the side of the wagon says: "YOUNG PINKIES FROM COLUMBIA AND HARVARD"
The sign on the back of it says: "DEPLETING THE RESOURCES OF THE SOUNDEST GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD"
Stalin stands in the right foreground saying: "HOW RED THE SUNRISE IS GETTING" as the Brain Trustees throw bags of money into the mud.
At the bottom left, Karl Marx is seen painting a sign that says:
"PLAN OF ACTION FOR U.S.
________________________
SPEND! SPEND! SPEND
UNDER THE GUISE OF
RECOVERY--BUST THE
GOVERNMENT-- BLAME
THE CAPITALISTS FOR
THE FAILURE--
JUNK THE
CONSTITUTION
AND DECLARE
A
DICTATORSHIP"
To the side, Marx comments: "IT WORKED IN RUSSIA!"
What's that old crack about "those who fail to learn from history . . .?"
Except, at the beginning of the Great Depression, the U.S. government was in the black--thus "the soundest government in the world." This time we are so far in the red that the Pols don't even try to explain how we will repay it. We can't. We're not even SPEND! SPEND! SPENDing our own money.
Just one question. Are we doomed to repeat total war, too?
Edited once for clarity.EHL
