Tag Archives: Economics

Is America Selling Its Soul?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 7, 2011

The 1941 film “The Devil and Daniel Webster” is unsettling by how relevant to our current day economic crisis is its story of America selling its soul.

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Lighten Up, Germany, and Save the Euro

By Robin Bates | Published: September 30, 2011

The German film “Mostly Martha” may help explain why the German Parliament has just extended the bailout to Greece and other indebted southern European nations.

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Vote for My Budget or I’ll Shoot Myself

By Robin Bates | Published: May 20, 2011

Threats by Congressional Republicans to vote against raising the debt ceiling limit—which would result in the United States defaulting on what it owes–reminds me of the scene in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles where the black sheriff (Cleavon Little) threatens to shoot himself.

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Watching Theater as Shakespeare Did

By Robin Bates | Published: February 22, 2011

This past Saturday I got a front row view of what it would have been like watching Shakespeare in the early 17th century. Julia and I journeyed to the replica of the Blackfriars Theater in Staunton, Virginia to watch Comedy of Errors and also John Marston’s 1603 revenge drama The Malcontent. Some of drama’s greatest […]

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Poems That Help Us See the Economy

By Robin Bates | Published: January 20, 2011

  Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish has alerted me to a fascinating article in the January issue of Poetry entitled “Haiku Economics: Money, Metaphor, and the Invisible Hand.” In it, Professor of Economics Stephen Ziliak talks about how poetry can help illuminate the dismal science (as economics has been described). The problem with economic models, Ziliak says, is […]

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Dostoevsky’s Support for Troubled Homes

By Robin Bates | Published: January 4, 2011

In debates about whether or not to help out troubled homeowners, Fyodor Dostoevsky would probably be in favor.  I am currently reading The Brothers Karamazov and am struck by how applicable it seems to the debate over foreclosures. The mortgage crisis, of course, pushed the world economy into recession, and foreclosures on homes are still […]

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How the Rich Cry Poverty, Austen Style

By Robin Bates | Published: September 21, 2010

John Kenneth Galbraith, noted economist and author of The Affluent Society, used to read Jane Austen before he sat down to write. He wanted to achieve the author’s light ironic touch in his own work. Yesterday another liberal economist had me thinking of Austen. Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate who writes for the New York […]

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Crusoe, A Parable for Our Time

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2010

I have been teaching Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in an Introduction to Literature class and am struck once more by how important a book it is. I say this even though it is not read or taught as much as it once was. Robinson Crusoe continues to be relevant because it goes right to the […]

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