TWO THINGS

by the Sandwichman

"'Two things,' he said, as we were standing outside the first-class bathroom. 'One, just because I think it really captures where I was going with the whole issue of balancing market sensibilities with moral sentiment. One of my favorite quotes is — you know that famous Robert F. Kennedy quote about the measure of our G.D.P.?'

"I didn’t, I said."

"'Well, I’ll send it to you, because it’s one of the most beautiful of his speeches,' Obama said.

"In it, Kennedy argues that a country’s health can’t be measured simply by its economic output. That output, he said, 'counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them -- but not the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.'"

"How did we get to this strange pass, where up is down and down is up? How did it happen that the nation’s economic hero is a terminal-cancer patient going through a costly divorce? How is it that Congress talks about stimulating 'the economy' when much that will actually be stimulated is the destruction of things it says it cares about on other days?

"How did the notion of economy become so totally uneconomic?

"The story begins in Ireland in the 1650s..."