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Dear Editor Presidential Humor One can only groan at Andrew Molhson's finding the tepid aw-shucks humor of our new President so hilarious ("The Reagan Repartee," NL, January 26) This style is not...

...Dear Editor Presidential Humor One can only groan at Andrew Molhson's finding the tepid aw-shucks humor of our new President so hilarious ("The Reagan Repartee," NL, January 26) This style is not confined to the Midwest—it can be found wherever complacent people of limited intelligence happen to be in power Tall tales in the mouths of Presidential press secretaries are not very funny either In fact, the affable expression on James Brady's face in the illustration accompanying the article reminds me of what Mark Twain called "the smile of a Christian who has three aces in his hand " We are not amused New York City Harold Grimes In Praise of Tact Phoebe Pettmgell raises the issue of the dead's right to privacy m her review of Louise Bogan's Journey Around My Room ("Poets' Notebooks," NL, January 26) It is a telling point, given the present propensity to dwell on the weaknesses of great writers Artists should be judged by the work they put before the public, and not by whatever jottings the nec-rophiles who flock to their remains manage to exhume W H Auden deplored this tactlessness, and so should we Pettingell's recognition of her subjects' dignity is part of what makes her an edifying critic Boston Timothy Salmon Keyserling In the exchange entitled "The Root of Our Economic Woes" (NL, February 9), Sidney Weintraub, on the basis of my statement that "Elevating the inflation issue to a near-obsession, rather than seeing it in a wider context, has led to the neglect of problems of equal or greater importance, artd brought more inflation to boot," indicted me severely as impervious to inflation First of all, during my more than six years with the Council of Economic Advisers under President Truman, the President with my advice brought into being policies that helped to hold inflation to an annual average of 3 per cent and less than 1 per cent m the last year On inflation, employment and unemployment, real economic growth, productivity, priorities, and state of the Budget, the record on a properly weighted basis was better than in any later period The policies included direct controls for almost three years, which 1 again advocated in testimony on February 11 of this year before the Joint Economic Committee Since 1953,1 have stressed the need for reasonable price stability and outlined how to bring it about in more than 2,000 speeches and articles, scores of Congressional appearances, and more than 30 published and widely distributed studies under the aegis of the Conference on Economic Progress The Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, of which I was the principal author, sets forth an anti-inflation program more stringent than any adopted by the government except in times of war The charge of my softness toward inflation evidently emanates from my referring to a damaging "obsession" on the subject during recent years, now, and prospectively But the three basic objectives of an economic system are (1) To optimize real growth in production ot goods and services, without debilitating strain and without resort to measures that violate our concept of freedom and flexibility (All evidence indicates that increases in the total volume of goods and services do more than anything else to promote full employment and full use of our other production resources, to reduce poverty and deprivation, and to encourage adequate public outlays for urgent national priorities ) (2) To distribute these goods and services, and to fashion the allocation of resources and incomes in a manner compatible with the first objective, instead of permitting imbalances in the structure to bring on repeated recessions or depression (3) To advance social justice, which is close to the other two objectives yet not identical Long experience, both here and overseas, demonstrates conclusively that declining, stable or rising price levels may result in an allocation of resources and incomes in aid of or in defeat of these three basic objectives During the 1920s, for example, the price level was remarkably stable except for falling farm prices, and yet, because ot defective private and public policies, profits and investment and the ability to produce grew so much more rapidly than private and public consumption combined that the Great Crash resulted During more recent years the same kind of imbalances, in lesser degree, have produced repeated recessions with all of their economic and social costs The erroneous national policies have not only resulted from improper attention to price trends, they have importantly been caused as well by wrongful approaches to taxation and public spending, social insurance and welfare programs, plus a wide range of other misguided notions From 1953 to date, the increasing obsession' to reduce inflation by "slowing down" the economy (the "trade-off") has caused forfeiture of more than 8 trillion 1979 dollars worth of total national production and about 85 million years of undesirable unemployment The combined process of chronically more serious stagnation and actually unrestrained inflation has fed the fat and starved the lean Real growth has dwindled, and productivity growth has collapsed Imperative public outlays have been endunngly avoided in a limping economy The Federal deficit has grown incontinently, because the blood of adequate Federal revenues cannot be squeezed from the turnip of a deliberately stunted economy The superior performance of foreign economies, the damaging effects upon us of their "competition," and our recurrent difficulties with our balance of trade and payments, and with the dollar overseas, have all stemmed fundamentally, not from the misdeeds of others, but from our own shortcomings Even the misdeeds of opec have been grossly exaggerated in their effects by our domestic defaults The Carter Administration accelerated all of these inimical trends The Reagan Administration, despite a laudable verbal commitment to restore real economic growth, is pushing fiscal policies on both the tax and spending side, and supporting monetary policies, destined to move us inexorably in the same wrong directions The new Administration admits that two years will be needed to reduce inflation greatly That is optimistic, given its proposals The monstrosity is compounded because deliberate neglect of all other problems has augmented the ravaging inflation During 1969-80, for instance, with a real average annual economic growth of less than 3 per cent, unemployment rose from 3 5 per cent in the first year to well above 7 per cent in the last Inflation rose from 5 4 per cent to about 13 per cent, and the Federal deficit (fiscal years) increased almost three times Note the performance to the contrary during 1947-53, as described above The reconstruction of national policies that i have urged for so long and still urge, is based upon the actual performance results of differing policies, and embraces periods of peace and war, high prosperity and stagflation As a top priority, we should take every feasible step to restore full employment and full production, quantitatively defined, and we can attain this by 1983 This m itself would greatly restrain price increases, and even if it did not (against all the evidence), the gains on other fronts would immensely outweigh the different trends in prices Toward this end, we do not need planning of the whole economy But we do imperatively need short-range and long-range planning of what the govemmenl itself does, which means national policies that help to bring about a more workable allocation of resources and a more equitable distribution of incomes Public programs, especially through the Federal budget, should accent increased public outlays for priority purposes, as against blunderbuss tax reduction of a regressive nature i believe that some selective price controls are now necessary A meaningful "national incomes policy," however, must extend not only to prices (with some selective controls) but to all policies and programs, including fiscal and monetary, that affect allocations and incomes—in other words, to virtually every national economic policy The American people need to be relieved of the brainwashing that regards too much of what the government does as bad and too much of what is done elsewhere as good Policy should be determined by practical tests, not by ideological smears and alarms that ascribe the results of wretched policies to the earlier policies in eJfect when we did very well Washington, D C Leon H Kevserling President, Conference on Economic Progess Rural America As a former resident of a farm town, I scoff at Richard J Margohs' fond wishes for a liberal coalition with rural voters (" Liberals and the Rural Vote," NL, January 26) He seems to think that there is something inherently anti-suburban in the migration of many voters to the country, when in fact for most nonfarmmg rural residents the countryside might as well be a suburb—just more spread out No amount of soothing talk can cajole rural Americans out of their suspicion of the big city, which to them is less a matter of bloated corporations than of intellectuals like Margohs, poor folk, and blacks Pious exhortations to "search in our hearts" for shared truths won't do any good—the rural people I know all too well have petty hearts indeed Chicago Ktrk Daw son Richard J Margohs replies Kirk Dawson is pettifogging I have encountered many kind hearts and sensible heads in rural America Macbeth While panning Sarah Caldwell's production of Macbeth ("Shakespeare in Shambles," NL, February 23), Leo Sauvage insists that "we need some hint of an explanation for the credulity of the Scottish nobleman and his wife," who beheve the dark muttenngs of the weird sisters The rest of Sauvage's criticisms of the production are just, but I must point out that the Caledonian peerage, even now, is not noted for being too skeptical of superstition, and of course this would have been especially true in Macbeth s time Once the existence of the witches is accepted, Mac-beth's credulity follows New York Ctiv Christian MacGregor Alarm In her review of Joyce Carol Oates' short storv collection, A Sentimental Education ("Hidden Motivations," NL, February 9), Daphne Merkin sharply critiques Oates' latest work, as well as her tone over the years, as verging on alarm and hvbtena We weep not for Oates, her record easily withstands the criticism of a reviewer who, herself, may have been at wit's end over the approaching alarm of deadline time, with its need for a "theme" neatlv htting into galley form Pitv—Merkin has inspired in the past One suspects, though, she is preoccupied lately with melancholy and generalization Drifters, in her phrase, may be little more than providers of "great se\," bui hobo alley is full of happy people, too It's tar too easy to generalize and minimize Nen iorkCit\ Joel Cohen IF DIABETES IS SO EASY TO LIVE WITH, WHY IS IT THE THIRD LARGEST KILLER...