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gathering of all these people—the cooking and serving and cleaning—a chore. But today it doesn?t feel that way. The host—perhaps it?s you—stands up and asks that we give thanks, and we do, each in our own way. And what we?re thankful for is simply this, the food, the shelter, the company and, above all, the sense of belonging.
As holidays go, Thanksgiving is in some ways the most philosophical. Today we try not to take for granted the things we almost always take for granted. We try if only in that brief pause before the eating begins, to see through the well-worn patterns of our lives to what lies behind them. In other words, we try to understand how very rich we are, whether we feel very rich or not. Today is one of the few times most Americans consciously set desire aside, if only because desire is incompatible with the gratitude—not to mention the abundance—that Thanksgiving summons.
It?s tempting to think that one Thanksgiving is pretty much like another, except for differences in the guest list and the recipes. But it isn?t true. This is always a feast about where we are now. Thanksgiving reflects the complexion of the year we?re in. some years it feels buoyant, almost jubilant in nature. Other years it seems marked by a conspicuous humility uncommon in the calendar of American emotions.
And this year? We will probably remember this Thanksgiving as a banquet of mixed emotions. This is, after all, a profoundly American holiday. The undertow of business as usual seems especially strong this year. The shadow of a war and misgivings over the future loom in the minds of many of us. Most years we enjoy the privacy of Thanksgiving, but this year, somehow, the holiday feels like part of a public effort to remember and reclaim for ourselves what it means to be American.
That means giving thanks for some fundamental principles that should be honored every day of the year in the life of this nation—principles of generosity, tolerance and inclusion. This is a feast that no one should be turned away form. The abundance of the food piled on the table should signify that there is plenty for all, plenty to be shared. The welcome we feel makes sense only if we also extend it to others.
Passage 10
For the best part pf 20 years, Alan Greenspan has been a symbol of the stupidity of ageism. He became chairman of the US Federal Reserve at 61, when plenty of workers have already been tossed on the scrapheap and many others are preparing to wind down for retirement, His golden years in charge of US economy were when he
was pushing 70 and he?s still there aged 78. Greenspan is the doyen of central bankers, still talked about in almost reverential terms by his peers. The fact that the Fed chairman rarely gives interviews and makes public pronouncements that are to economists what Finnegans Wake is to literature only adds to mystique.
It is, then, with some trepidation that the question has to be asked: has Big Alan finally lost the plot? At the start of last week, Greenspan presided over a meeting of the Fed which kept interest rates on hold at 1 %, the level they have been pegged at for nearly a year. A statement accompanying the decision said the risks to inflation were balanced, which means the Fed thinks there is as much chance of the cost of living going up as going down. On Thursday, hew joblessness claims in the US fell to their lowest level in getting on for four years, and the picture of are covering labouring market was underlined by Friday?s non-farm payrolls which showed an increase of 288,000, above what had been expected. The economy is expanding at an annual rate of 4.5%, surveys of both manufacturing and the service sector are strong, the housing market is booming, inflation has started to pick up.
Hardly surprisingly, Greenspan?s call on inflation is now coming under the microscope, even by those on the Keynesian left who tend to favour expansionary macroeconomic policies. “Show me
something, other than computers, where the price is falling,” says Dean Baker of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Washington . Baker is right. Clearly, risks to inflation are on the upside, and massively so. The economy has been injected with a cocktail of three growth-inducing drugs—negative real interest rates, a rising budget deficit and a falling currency. Oil prices have touched $40 a barrel and the labour market is tightening. It is hard to believe that Greenspan, a junkie for economic data no matter how seemingly trivial, has not spotted all this. Rates in the US are far below a neutral level, which would probably be around 5 %, yet Greenspan is in no hurry to act.
Passage 11
For it is not the large houses that live in the memory of the visitor. He goes through them as a matter of duty, and forgets about them as a matter of course. The pictures that linger in his mind, called up a moment by such sensations as the smell of roses or of new-mown hay, are of a simpler nature. A little cottage nestling amidst the wayside trees, the blue smoke curling up against the green, and a bower of roses round the door; or perhaps a village street of which the name has been long forgotten, with rambling old inn, and, a little distance away, the hoary, grey church-tower in its township of