Explaining America to the NYT

Neil Irwin is a senior economics correspondent for the New York Times. He showcased his ignorance in his latest offering to the public, "Everything Is Awful. So Why Is the Stock Market Booming?"

The column is the gloom and doom the left has churned out throughout my lifetime. Ever since the Great Depression brought us FDR, they have rooted for another one. Obama disappointed them. But this time -- under the charismatic, super-intelligent, and definitely not senile Joe Biden -- the nation will finally capitulate and embrace communism, er, um, socialism.

Irwin wrote, "What on earth is the stock market doing?

"Death and despair are all around. The number of people filing for unemployment benefits each of the last two weeks was about 10 times the previous record — and is probably being artificially held back by overloaded government systems. Vast swaths of American business are shuttered indefinitely. The economic quarter now underway will most likely feature Great Depression-caliber shrinkage in economic activity.

"Yet at Thursday’s close, the S&P 500 was up 25% from its recent low on March 23. It is down only about 14% this year — and is up from its levels of just 11 months ago. There are answers as to why. But that doesn’t take away the extremity of the juxtaposition between an economy in free fall and a stock market that is, in the scheme of things, doing just fine."

Much of this is the Federal Reserve pumping money into the stock market. But mainly this is simply Americans being American. We are an optimistic people. We had to be. You don't endure months at sea crammed into a ship traveling to an unexplored land without tons of faith. 102 people were aboard the Mayflower, which was 80 feet long and 24 feet wide. The trip took 66 days.

Stocks are purchased on faith that the company will grow.

Irwin wrote, "Stock prices are always based on what the world will look like in the future, not the present. In the global financial crisis, stock prices bottomed out in March 2009. The economy did not begin expanding again until July, and the unemployment rate would not peak until October.

"But current market pricing suggests that investors are counting on a speedy rebound."

Why would they not be? The economy was solid before COVID-19 hit. After decades of decline under inferior presidents, manufacturing grew and actually added 601,000 jobs since we elected Donald John Trump president.

Under Obama we lost 901,000 manufacturing jobs.

Gloom and doom just are not the American way. The music of the 1930s included mostly uplifting and happy songs. For "Swing Time," the ultimate Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire musical, Jerome Kern and lyricist Dorothy Fields gave us "Pick Yourself Up," which was deployed when Rogers taught Astaire to dance.

She sang:

Nothing's impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start all over again.

And of course he miraculously learned to dance like Fred Astaire.

By the time she realized she was conned she was smitten. It was a happy movie without zombies, vampires, or Marvel characters.

Americans are happy people, something the staff at the New York Times repeatedly miss. Americans also are industrious.

In 1953, MGM paired Gene Kelly with a young gymnast named Debbie Reynolds for "Singin’ in the Rain." She was not then a dancer and Kelly bullied her.

Maria Carter wrote, "During dance rehearsals, she once ducked into one of MGM's rehearsal rooms and sat under a piano crying. Another legendary dancer, Fred Astaire, then in his early 50s, was the one to comfort her. 'You're not going to die,' he told her. 'That's what it's like to learn to dance. If you're not sweating, you're not doing it right.'"

So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again. And we sweat like Fred Astaire did for days on end so that it looks smooth and easy for a 2 minutes in a film.

And doing so in "Swing Time" led to the most graceful dance MGM RKO ever produced.