Echo and Narcissus

Echo was a nymph cursed by Jupiter’s wife to surrender her power of speech except to reply – she could never initiate conversation. She fell in love with Narcissus, a beautiful but haughty youth who rudely spurned her, leading Nemesis, the Roman God of Vengeance, to make him fall in love with his own reflection, to teach him the meaning of lovelessness.

From Bullfinch’s The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes, 1855

Curses from Gods are usually definitive – you might as well beg Samuel Alito for mercy. But Echo and Narcissus pledged to overcome their deficiencies so heartfeltly Jupiter allowed them to return to Earth and have a second chance. So they returned, and moved into a rowhouse in a hipster neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Narcissus was sitting on the sofa late one afternoon, watching a video of a man skateboarding while drinking cranberry juice and lip-synching Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” The man in the video was strikingly handsome, tall and thin with prominent but striking features – an Adam Driver type. Narcissus smiled broadly as he watched the man because, as you’d imagine, he was watching himself. His promises to reform and his ongoing psychotherapy aside, he was pursuing a career as a social influencer and looking for part-time work as an underwear model to get himself over the temporary hump – he was having trouble holding a job.

He heard the door open. “Hi, honey,” he shouted without looking up.

“Hi, honey,” came the reply. Echo was elfin, attractive, with a pixie haircut and delicate features. She worked as a court stenographer, allowed her to use her power of repetition to good advantage.

“What’s up?” Narcissus asked.

“What’s up?” Echo replied, putting her keys down.

“I had my first session with that therapist,” Narcissus replied. “She says I need to start thinking about what other people say and think.”

“What other people say and think?” Echo replied.

“And she said you need to think for yourself.”

“Think for yourself,” Echo mused. Narcissus’ attention shifted back to his phone when he suddenly remembered he was talking to Echo. “She said relationships where the partners are driven by hidden agendas and compulsions can be unhealthy.”

“Unhealthy?”

Narcissus shrugged. “Well, who knows what’s healthy and what’s not, right? But therapy’s not so bad. You sit around and talk about yourself. Which reminds me! I’m watching myself on Tik Tok,” he said. “Look at this -- I look really good!”

Echo took the phone from him and looked. “Really good,” she agreed before handing it back. She sloughed off her backpack, took out her own phone, and sat down next to him. They kissed perfunctorily and regarded their devices.

Narcissus admired his video all over again. “A cool video like this one should get me – what? – five hundred new followers? Pretty soon I’ll have millions, like that Cameron Dallas, or that Zach King dude, or Rhianna. And I’m way better looking.”

“Way better looking,” Echo repeated, offering a small smile.

“That’s what I was saying!” Narcissus replied, and went back to his cranberry juice video.

“Everybody loves that Fleetwood Mac thing.”

“Everybody loves that Fleetwood Mac thing,” Echo said, nodding in agreement as she returned to her phone.

“You said it!” Narcissus said, and technically he was correct. He flipped through more videos of himself, including one of him wearing a laurel wreath he kept as a memento of the Roman woods from which they originally came. “I love that wreath,” he said.

“I love that wreath,” Echo replied.

They smiled at each other and then returned to their phones for a while, although Echo’s mind seemed elsewhere. In fact, it was not long before she was startled and began repeating what was on her screen as opposed to repeating what Narcissus had just said, but repeating just the same. “Relationships can be made more intimate and durable through a commitment to openness and transparency,” she said, pointing to the words on her phone as she read them. (Learning to read expanded both her horizons and conversation.) She looked up, puzzled.

Narcissus wasn’t listening – his eyes never left his screen. “This one of me in the convertible is pretty good, too.” He leaned over to show her the screen.

“The convertible is pretty good, too,” Echo said, her tone growing frustrated..

Narcissus swiped energetically. “And this one of me modeling clothes – it’s the bomb.”

“It’s the bomb,” Echo repeated, smiling weakly. They again focused on their devices – he at himself, she at things to repeat – until she again read her screen, word by word. “A simple twenty minutes of walking, calm thinking, or meditation can reduce your level of cortisol and help create wellness and composure.” She paused, her fingers going to her lips as she considered what she repeated.

Narcissus looked over at her screen and saw Echo’s words there. “Why are you looking at that, honey? You know you’re just going to repeat stuff they tell you. The therapist thinks that’s bad. Here – let me find some cool stuff to watch.”

“Cool stuff to watch,” she agreed and nodded, focusing again on him. Narcissus went flipping through his phone for more videos of himself, but when he found them, they distracted him so completely he forgot to show them to Echo. She, meanwhile, returned to her phone, and after a few moments, read from it again. “Gratitude is the key to building intimacy.”

Narcissus didn’t look up. “To building what?” he said, now watching a video of himself dancing in a glade in a forest. He was wearing the wreath again. “Look at this,” he said, showing her his phone again

Echo remained glued to her screen. “Look at this.”

“Look at what? Are you watching my dancing in the forest video?” he said, grinning. “it’s really good.”

Echo read her screen once more. “Expressing interest in others increases your mental and physical health,” she read, then held the phone up to him. Narcissus didn’t look up. Echo looked at him frustratedly and began scrolling on her phone until she found else something worth repeating. “People often find themselves trapped in self-defeating and counterproductive relationships,” she read pointedly, glancing at him as she read the words one by one, their meaning beginning to dawn on her.

“Sucks for them,” Narcissus replied.

“Sucks for them!” Echo agreed emphatically.

Narcissus looked up, slowly becoming aware that Echo seemed dissatisfied. “Are you OK? Like, are you having some kind of problem?””

“Having some kind of problem,” Echo declared, her tone now more accusatory.

“Why are you looking at me like what?” Narcissus blurted defensively. “Is this about our relationship?”

“About our relationship!” Echo said.

Narcissus sighed with exasperation. “Are you going to bring up all that stuff from the Roman woods again? OK, I was a bit of a dick. But that was forever ago. Jupiter gave us another chance. We’re happy here, aren’t we? Echo, babe, you’ve got to control your attitude,” he said entreatingly, rubbing her shoulders.

“You’ve got to control your attitude!” she said, pulling back.

“I am,” Narcissus said, surprised by her insistence, then added, “although you could tell me how nice I look,” he said, pulling up another video of himself.

“You could tell me how nice I look!”

Narcissus was now confused. “Echo, baby,” he said, “I thought we were going to give this a chance. I thought we agreed I would get help, that we would work on changing.”

Echo put down her phone and looked at him. “Work on changing.”

Narcissus’ annoyance was mounting. “Echo, honey, if you’re going to be like that, then maybe we ought to break up.”

Echo’s jaw clenched and firmed. “We ought to break up.”

Narcissus laughed involuntarily. “Babe, it’s just old mountain nymph stuff again. It happened two thousand years ago. I thought we were over that. I’m over it,” he said, even as a video of him overlooking a scenic vista was playing.

“I’m over it!” Echo answered, and strode purposefully into their bedroom. Narcissus heard drawers opening and closing in rapid succession.

He followed her in. “What are you doing? Are you packing?”

“Packing,” Echo said without looking up. She collected things from around the room and bathroom and threw her few possessions into a bag, but then spied their the laurel wreath from the ancient Roman woods sitting on the dresser.

“No! Not the laurel!” Narcissus shouted.

“The laurel,” Echo repeated as she held it resolutely.

“I look so good in that!” Narcissus cried.

Echo whirled to face him. “I look so good in that,” she said, threw it in her bag, and marched to the door. She opened it and turned back to him.

Narcissus stammered as it occurred to him she light leave. “Please don’t go, Echo baby. Don’t do it. No! I’m going to change!”

She paused halfway out the door when she turned to him. “No,” she said firmly. “I’m going to change.”

And with that she was gone, for there was nothing left to say..

Happy Valentine's Day!

Why Larry's Wrong

Oh no. More economics? don't worry -- hillarity resumes Tuesday. In the meantime...

Larry Summers column in The Washington Post last Thursday challenged the thinking behind the Biden stimulus, and might have led some to second thoughts about it. Is the $1.9 trillion Biden stimulus too big, too risky, and does it, as Larry says, “threaten future inflation and financial stability …(and)…our ability to build back better?”

No, it doesn’t; Larry is wrong. The stimulus is not too big, and the risks of curtailing it are much greater than the risks of not doing so. We’ll throw some numbers around later, but it boils down to this -- Larry is treating the current situation as if it were a math problem to be solved instead of a national crisis that reaches the roots of our society. We’re not just trying to fix the economy, we’re trying to take steps to avert a colossal shitshow, a true existential crisis. Failure means a virus that’s uncontained and mutating, more economic dislocation, and even greater social strains that lead to dangerous, if ludicrous, behavior from shaming mask wearers and attacking science to picking up assault rifles to kidnap the Governor or storming the Capitol. The “right” level of effort is not one that uses past recessions as a guide, but one that overwhelms the crisis we face, the economic equivalent of shock and awe. Besides, the economy’s growth has disappointed us for coming on two decades – is the risk of “too strong” an economy really keeping you up at night?

Let’s start with some of technical stuff. Larry’s argument is that we’re going too big, much bigger than the problem. He gets to that by focusing on the “gap between actual and potential output,” which he says is $50 billion a month and declining. While our child’s “potential” is unlimited, “potential” output is more like an actual limit – it means the economy could be producing $50 billion more stuff – goods and services – if everybody had a job and all the factories were humming and so on. Sure, it’s not a hard number like your age or the temperature, it’s an “estimate,” a good guess. But let’s accept it for the time being, because it’s ultimately not that important.

Larry writes the Biden stimulus would be in the neighborhood of $150 billion a month, which is “three times the size of the output shortfall,” as if we were shoveling three shovelfuls of dirt into a one-shovelful hole, which understandably sounds silly. And he then goes further, noting that “wage and salary incomes are now running $30 billion below “pre-COVID-19 forecasts” and so the $150 billion a month stimulus appears to be five times as big as needed, which sounds really silly.

But it’s the comparisons that are silly. If consumers were simply cutting back on their purchases while hoping to find work, instead of quarantining at home, fearful for their lives with stores and workplaces disrupted, the comparison would be less jejune. We’re not trying to fill a hole here -- we’re trying to build a dike. And the “right” height for the dike is based on how high the water is.

That is, ordinarily, you combat a recession by adding purchasing power to the economy. But here, we’re after much bigger game – we’re trying to do things that must be done if we’re going to get through this. A good way to understand the difference is by looking at what’s in the package that adds to $1.9 trillion. Here’s the list, lifted from an article published by Brookings.

1. COVID-19 containment and vaccination, aid to state and local governments, and increased federal spending ($750 billion): this category includes both the direct $350 billion in state and local aid, as well as money for vaccination, testing and tracing, and reopening schools;

2. Direct aid to families ($600 billion): this category includes the $1400 per person rebate checks and the child tax credit expansion;

3. Aid to financially vulnerable households ($400 billion): this category includes the additional $400 per week in unemployment benefits and the extension of the pandemic unemployment programs; and

4. Aid to businesses ($150 billion): this category includes loans and grants to small businesses and paid sick leave.

So, is this three times or five times what’s needed? Would you cut this stuff by two-thirds because of the “output gap?” Go through the list. There’s $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, which are going broke and will be laying off copious people while cutting basic services if left to their own devices – remember, they were assigned both the job and the bill for managing the crisis. Instead, this aid preserves the basic services state and local governments provide, and then more for vaccinations, testing and tracing, and everybody’s darling, reopening schools. And Larry should be excited about this part of the program, because it doesn’t add output so much as replace the output state and local governments are about strip away through cutbacks. We can’t afford not to take these steps.

And let’s say what is often left unsaid – aside from wanting to screw over predominantly Democratic officials and people of color in urban centers, the Republicans who oppose this aid also likely want to leverage the situation to break public sector workers’ pension systems. Aid to state and local governments would not only help preserve them as active partners in the campaign to stop the pandemic, but would also help defeat that sad agenda.

The second component is direct aid to families. There’s been a push to limit this in two grounds. First, families with incomes as high as $290,000 would receive a check, albeit a very small one. Now, where to draw the line is a reasonable thing to discuss within limits, but the Republican starting point is $100,000 is even more divorced from reality than the $300,000 found in the proposal. (Remember, a $100,000 “limit” means benefits start phasing out at half that amount.)

We also hear that families who receive this money appear eager to save it if they can, and therefore don't need it. Oh, please. When we cut taxes for wealthy families in 2017, that money was saved – come on, they’re rich people, what else are they going to buy? – and I don’t recall complaints. But more crucially, if families can save that money, that’s good, too. Again, this isn’t about promoting spending – it’s about giving families better ability to make choices, to give them a cushion in case – let’s make up something crazy here – a mutant variant of the virus throws the whole vaccination strategy into a cocked hat. I’d go out on a limb and say families that have some resources will be less willing to protest mask wearing or restrictions on bars and restaurants or even taking masked pictures with their guns. Again, it’s not a math problem – it’s a response to a social crisis rarely experienced in our history.

The third item on the list — unemployment benefits -- is one Larry and every attempted targeter – from William Tell to Bill Burroughs – should support. An expanded unemployment benefits program is completely targeted -- if you’re working you don’t get it, it goes away.

But Larry is still uncomfortable with it. He says, “…a family of four making $1,000 a week would take home $22,000 over the next six months. Under the Biden program, if…laid off, the family’s income…would likely exceed $30,000.” I suppose the good news is that if the pandemidc ends and the economy improves we can stop worrying about overpaying working families! But nobody’s produced evidence of workers goldbricking to get lush unemployment bennies – working people understand the way to have a job tomorrow is to have a job today. More important, strong unemployment benefits make it possible for families to get by if pandemic-related restrictions deprive them of work. No one thinks everyone protesting mask mandates and business closings is going to change their mind if they’re offered better benefits. But they are just responding to the Trump dictum that our two choices are “get sick or go to work.” That approach fed an insurrection. The Biden program sets up a third alternative. It’s not “excessive” – it’s vital.

And then there’s finally aid to businesses. This isn’t a “stimulus” so much as it attempts to put those businesses crushed by the pandemic into the economic equivalent of a “medically-induced coma,” keeping them alive until their underlying disease passes. And it’s worked -- small businesses failures were actually dramatically lower in 2020 than in 2019, although I've heard no complaints about the absence of targeting in this case. And of all the components of the plan, it’s the one guaranteed a seat on the bus – Republicans want less vaccination money, less open schools money, and so on, but actually want more money than Biden does here. So, it’s moot.

All of these details support a central argument – defeating the virus means more than producing as much vaccine as is possible or increasing consumer purchasing power. It means supporting Americans as they try to navigate the crisis and get to the other side. The compelling risk here is not that we miss our “target,” but we fail.

Sure, there are risks. An overheated economy risks inflation, but we’ve been under the Fed’s inflation target for coming on two decades now – even Larry admits “an overheated economy…(that pushes)…up wages would be a very positive thing.” And Larry is worried that “economic space be found for the public investments that should be the nation’s highest priority.” But the best way to tee up those investments – added infrastructure, universal broadband, a climate program -- is to end the pandemic and move those items to the top of the agenda. You’re not going to get a carbon tax or user fees for highways with the economy contracting and 20,000 people dying every week.

Ending the pandemic and its economic effects means not just producing and distributing vaccine, but allowing state and local governments to continue to deliver services, supporting our families so they don’t fear the disruptions that are part of pandemic response, and keeping in mind the greatest sacrifices have been made by low-income people and people of color, and so the greatest efforts must be made to assist them. Failing to do so means not just hundreds of thousands of additional deaths and an economic calamity, but a society in a dangerous stand-off.

The Biden program is not too small. It responds to a danger of massive proportions and is therefore massive. History will measure its success not by comparing it to an “output gap,” but by whether it succeeded in bringing our country back. That is the right “target.”

Hangin' With Scrub Daddy

His smiling face is seen in kitchens around the world. He is the television program Shark Tank’s greatest success. He is the number one polymer foam personality in the world today.

Homemakers around the world keep him close at hand. He is … Scrub Daddy.

Scrub Daddy sits back in a leather recliner in his gracious yet comfortable home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A Montecristo No. 2 sits in his famous, trademarked smile, which is also good for cleaning knives, forks, and serving pieces of any size. When asked about his success, a contemplative side emerges.

“You have to believe in yourself,” Scrub Daddy says. His perfectly circular eyes, good for inserting fingers when cleaning glasses and jars, seem to widen as he summons up a philosophy that has carried him to the top of the kitchen sink ziggurat. “Sure, I enjoy success, but I never forget what it took to get me to where I am today -- hard work, creativity, versatility. You’ve got to do it all. Look at me. In hot water, I soften, ready to handle the jobs requiring a delicate touch – crystal, chinaware, champagne flutes. But put me in cold water and I’m stiff, unyielding, capable of attacking baked-on grime in chafing dishes, cast iron skillets, coffee pots you left on the burner without turning them off when you went to work that morning. There was a time when you could fill the space under the sink with all the stuff you’d need to handle those different jobs. Now,” he says, his broad smile beaming fixedly, “all you need to do is call Daddy.”

He is the most successful product ever launched on the Fantasy Island of entrepreneurship, Shark Tank. “Oh, that was a special day!” he recollects. “I came out there, I did the cold and hot trick, then I cut through the bottom of a pan that had sat on a dung fire in the Indian Subcontinent like Germany cut through the Low Countries. And when I rinsed off I was good as new. You know, I can do that – rinse me out for the count of three and I’m as cute and yellow as when I escaped from my packaging.” He leans forward in his chair. “Go ahead -- look at me! Is there a line on my face? A divot in my matrix? Not a one! Renee Zellweger wishes she could run her face under cold water for three seconds and look the way she did when she came out of her package!”

And what advice does he give to other kitchen cleaning products who are starting down the path he blazed? “I’ll tell you what the problem is – too many kitchen supplies don’t want success hard enough, if you want to know the truth. They don’t know who they are, what they’re trying to be.” Some would take umbrage at so disparaging a remark, but Scrub Daddy is uncompromising. “It’s true. Look at Chore Boy. What is he? Is he a copper mesh that probably gives you cancer or is he an abrasive shmata, like a rag with impetigo? Let him come back when he’s figured it out. Or look at sponges. What do they do? Absorb water? So did your Aunt Tilly before they put her on diuretics. Ever take a sponge to a day-old casserole of baked ziti you were too drunk to clean after dinner?” Scrub Daddy scoffs, a puff of smoke escaping as he savors his cigar. “Michael Spinks had an easier time with Mike Tyson.

“And then they stick some abrasive felt on the back of a sponge, and suddenly it’s not a sponge, it’s Scotch Brite.” Scrub Daddy harrumphs contemptuously. “That’s not his real name, of course,” Scrub Daddy confides. “His real name is Ian or Angus or something, Scotch Brite is just his nom de nettoyage, I guess you’d say. I might as well glue a sheet of sandpaper to my back and call myself Zitmaster!” Scrub Daddy says, sneering derisively.

It's some serious shade to throw, but others say it’s not just marketing hype – the animosity is real. “I was at the afterparty at the Kitchen and Home Goods Award Dinner as few years ago and saw it first hand,” says Mr. Clean. The earringed icon recalls the moment as he sits on his deck overlooking the Pacific, his shaved head covered in a turban and a floral robe hanging loosely over his trademark white T-shirt and pants. “Everybody’s had a few, and Scotch Brite starts in on Daddy about how he can’t hold his liquor, or any fluids for that matter. So Daddy gets up in his face and calls him a sponge half breed, which raised some eyebrows right there, but Scotch Brite says, ‘At least I’m absorbent,’ kind of snide, so Daddy throws his drink in Scotch Brite’s face and says, ‘Absorb this, bitch.’ We had to break them up, but let me tell you -- when we picked them off the floor, the spot where they were tussling was polished to a fare-thee-well.”

Scrub Daddy shakes his head at the retelling. “That’s just what you’d expect Clean to say. That smile, the earring, nobody’s fooled. His original name was Helmut, you know. And who makes him? Proctor and Gamble. Who makes Scotch Brite? 3M. Didn’t they make napalm or something? Who makes Chore Boy? The Comet and Spic and Span people. They’re all in the pocket of Big Clean, all of them ganging up on a little guy like me. My margins are under constant attack – everybody wants a seat on my gravy train. Packaging designers. Distribution and logistics managers. Brand identity consultants. Social influencers. I’m everybody’s meal ticket. And retail – don’t get me started! It used to be you paid some doofus at Acme under the table for your shelf space at the supermarket, but you could still make a living. Now you have to go kiss Amazon’s ass for better positioning on a search, and a year later you’re competing against an Amazon Basics product that looks just like you at a twenty percent discount.”

We’re interrupted by Scrub Mommy, who enters with a pitcher of lemonade for us. She and Daddy regard each other and you can tell their smiles are genuine. But when this reporter accidentally drops his lemonade, Scrub Mommy throws herself to the floor in an instant, and in no time flat the spills is gone. “Yeah, she’s got a layer of ResoFoam that doesn’t quit – six times as absorbent as a regular sponge,” Scrub Daddy says admiringly. “And that crimson color – let’s just say that when I see her, it’s as if I was run under cold water for a while, you get my drift?” Scrub Mommy might have blushed, but being red, it was hard to tell.

A final question. Sure, Scrub Daddy is successful, famous, well-known – all the perks of celebrity accrue to him. But when you get down to it, his job is to smash his face into grease, grime, muck, char, and all of the other detritus of mealtime. It’s, for lack of a euphemism, a disgusting business. Doesn’t that ever wear on him?

Scrub Daddy scoffs. “Let me tell you something,” he snaps. “I look out at the world from the kitchen counter and I see scumbag lawyers defending vile clients, speculators and arbitrageurs profiting while creating nothing of value, people realizing fantastic incomes while the folks who teach kids, fight fires, or empty bedpans scrounge to get by. And then I’m asked if I find it degrading to take carbonized crud off a casserole or a cookie sheet. All I can say is there are some people who do rough jobs and there are other people who are lucky enough to watch them and wonder how it must feel.”

You would expect his smile to disappear and his round eyes to collapse into a steely gaze.

But, of course, they can’t.