Louis Uchitelle

"The government is doing what it can. They've learned the lessons of the 30s. And the lesson of the 30s was to put ideology aside and do whatever you can to bail it out," New York Times Chief Financial Correspondent Floyd Norris said in an Oct. 8 video on the publication's Web site entitled "Echoes from a Dismal Past."

"I agree with you," economics reporter Louis Uchitelle said, also pointing out that it took two years before the government really "stepped in and acted" during the Depression - referring to Franklin Roosevelt's action.

Norris said one of the first lessons of the 1930s was that bailing banks out would "limit the damage of the financial crisis."

"If you go back just two or three years ago, you had this powerful argument that government was the problem. So there is emerging from this an understanding that markets and government are married whether they like it or not," Uchitelle said.

Supply-side tax-cutters are on the march again, warned Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle on the front page of Wednesday's Business Day -- "A Political Comeback For Supply-Side Doctrine -- Debate on Tax Theory Now Focuses on the Wealthiest."

(The Times's international edition headline over Uchitelle's story had the slant of an opinion piece: "McCain sticks to supply-side economics despite evidence it doesn't work.")

Uchitelle's NYT piece began snidely:

When Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980, he promised to cut taxes in what seemed, at the time, a magical way. Tax revenue would go up, not down, he said, as the economy boomed in response to lower rates.