Hi Bradford,



A pleasant read and I agree with many of your observations.



I also agree with many of the points by Wolf and Eichengreen -- however, terming our lack of response to negative economic performance as (purely, or mostly) "intellectual" is wrong, in my view.



"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude towards the problem." -- Captain Jack Sparrow



It's more human psychology when we *know* what to do to fix the problem, but are too cautious or too afraid to have the courage of our convictions to implement known solutions.



Those with a slim majority in their house of government, will act a lot less bravely than those with a solid majority backing them.



That's not "intellectual" strictly speaking, that's well into human psychology territory.



Another point; The Scale of the Problem matters.



Humans, when confronted with an easily-solvable (small) problem, can defer making a decision (other things may prioritize higher) knowing that they have the luxury of time to deal with it.



But when a truly massive problem suddenly appears on the horizon, the typical human response is to stare at it in horror (which sometimes allows the scale of the problem to increase) so the deferring I mentioned in the previous example, turns into outright wallowing.



It's as if a psychological switch in the brain trips, routing energy away from taking action.



Eventually, someone with a stronger psychology arrives on the scene and proceeds to make short work of the economic mess, or other problem.



Am I blaming economists for this?



No. It takes political power to get bills passed.



As WWII began to take shape in Great Britain, what people *wanted* to hear was Neville Chamberlain's soothing appeasement -- but to *win the war* the British people needed to cross a certain psychological threshold -- and elected Winston Churchill for the win.



Winston, of course, had crossed that psychological threshold decades previously and was not only bold, but brilliant.



And, as every golfer knows, sometimes you need the deft touch of the putter (Neville), other times you need a cast-iron blunderbuss to blast you out of the weeds (Winston).



Each has its place. But the driver does not belong on the green, nor does the putter belong in the rough.



Selecting the right politician during economic downturns is everything and in my view, 90% of it is getting a psychologically powerful leader with a strong majority in place and in time to make short work of the problem.



Most of the "intellectual" part can come from the economists (regarding the economy) or professional lifelong military members (during time of war) -- while getting that on paper and done is the job for the leader and his/her political party.



As always, best regards, JBS