Follow this link to a column by Hans Despain in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette titled Economic stimulus package welcome, but will be little felt.

The author says he believes in Keynesian macroeconomic policy.  However, he provides some critiques of that policy and only weak rebutals.

One part that he presented stopped me dead in my tracks:

Economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian argue Keynesian elements of the New Deal failed to stimulate growth, by failing to put Americans back to work. This conclusion is shocking when it is realized that the NIRA created millions of jobs to rebuild America’s infrastructure, e.g. roadways, bridges and schools. Their data are unambiguous: total hours worked per adult fell 18 percent during Roosevelt’s first three years and 23 percent from 1933-39, after the NIRA was passed. We could call this the New Deal paradox: an increase in federal public work projects led to a decrease in total hours worked.

In an online response to this part of his article, I posted the following:

You are aware of the passage in 1938 of the “Fair Labor Standards Act”?

This was the culmination of the Labor movement’s 100 year effort to obtain the 8-hour work day and 40 hour work week.

So the effort to cut the average number of hours worked was deliberate. The purpose was to spread the work over a larger number of workers.

I find that when a statistic makes shockingly little sense and there is no explanation for it, then usually your instinct is right and the statistic is wrong.

Isn’t it ironic that George Bush was able to overturn some of the effect of the “Fair Labor Standards Act”, and we now find ourselves in this economic mess?

I’d say the original article might be another example of Greenberg’s Law of the Media.

I also wonder how Despain reconciles his statistics with the possibly equally misleading chart shown by Rachel Maddow. Her chart may be a stronger refutation of the straw man that he put up than his own efforts to refute it.