New times call for a new deal

Re “How to fix the economy -- let it be,” Opinion, Nov. 18

I agree with Jonah Goldberg’s premise that the government should end bailouts of bad companies, but my eyes roll at his spurious assertion that Barack Obama’s entire economic policy is to simply “project confidence.”

Despite Goldberg’s tired and unfounded argument about FDR’s New Deal, history reflects that the public works programs initiated during this period helped establish an infrastructure critical during the industrial ramp-up during and after World War II.

Hopefully, Obama will take a cue from FDR on more than how to just project confidence. Hopefully, he will use this crucial moment in our nation’s history to initiate public works programs that make America stronger, safer and better able to face the challenges of the 21st century.

Travis Wester

Culver City

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I love watching free-market apologists like Goldberg trying to tell us that to fix the economy, we must do the very thing that ruined it in the first place -- nothing.

According to him, the all-wise, all-seeing Market God will guide us through (though I think the Market God was on vacation during the Bush administration). Goldberg is doing a great job of channeling Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

Flann Maguire

Encinitas