Reminder: Ice Usually Melts Away In Spring

After seeing the riots in Riga last night and so much "fatalism" in my blog recently, I thought it is still good if we can make jokes about serious issues.

As to riots in Riga, Reuters reported:

RIGA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Hundreds of youths destroyed police vehicles, smashed windows and looted stores in Latvia's capital on Tuesday when an anti-government protest turned into a riot.

The violence, after a peaceful protest by thousands calling for early elections in a country which last year had to seek a multi-billion economic rescue deal, was the worst seen since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Now, back to ice that usually melts away in spring. Mark Thoma wrote, via Paul Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/a-scary-analogy/ :

I think the stimulus package is like driving up an icy hill. If you don’t have enough momentum from the start and fail to provide enough “stimulus” to get the car over the crest of the hill, you can slide all the way back to the bottom, crashing into things along the way and ending up worse off than when you started. Maybe you can give it more gas along the way if needed without spinning out, and perhaps you can hold your position if you don’t make it to the top, and then start again from the higher level, but that’s not a chance I want to take when I’m sitting at the bottom wondering if I can make it to the top without wrecking my car — the possibility of falling all the way back to the bottom and ending up worse off would make me want to start with sufficient momentum and then some. Essentially, I am arguing that there are crucial economic and psychological “tipping points” that must be reached in order for the economic recovery package to be effective (or at least, there’s enough of a chance that they exist that they cannot be ignored when formulating robust policy).

Ice should be away in Latvia by the end of March, latest ...