Frail and imperfect human that I am, I struggle with the impious urge to snicker at being called "a smart-ass liberal," the name-caller thereby casting himself as a "dumb-ass right winger." Snickering would not only be un-Christian; it would be insufficient. I might also have noted (again) that said name-caller's ego led him to inflate Pea Tardy protestors by a factor of approximately 15 -- and (as usual for other claims) cited no credible source. (He did promise to provide a clear photo.)

It would be cruel to belittle DARW for insinuating that I or "my people" aided, encouraged or committed violence at a G20 meeting. I did ask for his relevant evidence at any event "in Seattle or elsewhere." Poor kid, like a third-grader with an attention-deficit disorder, he skipped "elsewhere" and blurted, "Damn, you must have been in Seattle." (I won't tell his underpaid teacher he said a bad word.)

No, in fairness, the blusterer has spent years in the oil and gas industry. He is a reliable and prodigious producer of personal natural gas. He charges nothing for it, and it's worth every cent.

I could also, but won't, poke fun at last Friday's whippersnapper columnist who quoted the line "Let's hope deficit spending works to kick start the economy," asserting it was "written by a fool." Perhaps he was referring to me. I had summarized a John Maynard Keynes' strategy to clean up the mess inherited from the Bush administration -- so maybe he meant both of us. The whippersnapper is not always easy to decipher.

To the columnist's credit, his panache of non-sequiturs and alphabet soup is often spectacular.

I shan't expect the youngster to reread my column, nor consider the views of Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman (both Nobel prize winners) regarding Keynesian economics. That would interrupt his study of Pericles and otherwise be too taxing. As to his own economic expertise, I will courteously not mention his having confused profits with costs as he recently did. And I won't disparage his offer to solve the current crisis by running up his own credit card debt. He wants to help.

And so, summing up: In charitable humility, to each I turn not just my other cheek, but both cheeks. Now, more seriously ...

Economics is not an exact science; opinions and theories differ -- some catastrophically, as should be evident. In last Sunday's superb column, aptly titled "Hovering on the edge of disaster," Darrel Miller outlines the current economic crisis the present administration inherited and its roots. I hope you will reread it.

For the last few decades, perhaps since Ronald Reagan (and earlier, leading to the Great Depression), the prevailing macroeconomic theory was that free market capitalism is self-correcting and needs no significant government oversight. The rationale went that those whose driving motivation was to make more and more profits and accumulate more and more power and wealth never cheat, lie, steal ... or bully. Christians all.

In 1999, with the public focused on wedge issues like abortion, gay rights, "family values" and "they're gonna get our guns" paranoia -- on an almost straight party line vote, a Republican Congress quietly did something for which the financial industry had lobbied 20 years.

They repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.

The doors to speculative banking were thrown wide open. Now, not just a few, but all banks could reduce their capital reserve requirements and create labyrinthine investment instruments. Private business was God; public government was Satan. The DARWs said "That's OK -- 'cause my government and yours has no business messin' in business."

DARWs love to lay the blame solely on subprime mortgages, and indeed that is a part (and worth another column) but more like a fire-cracker than a nuclear bomb. The nuke came from the unregulated and under-regulated fiscal system. Suddenly, there were these smoking hot "derivatives" -- bundles and re-bundles of exponential risk graded investment worthy by all-too compliant rating firms. Here's how the International Swaps and Derivatives Organization defines them.

"A derivative is a risk transfer agreement, the value of which is derived from the value of an underlying asset. The underlying asset could be a physical commodity, an interest rate, a company's stock, a stock index, a currency, or virtually any other tradable instrument upon which two parties can agree. An over-the-counter derivative is a bilateral, privately-negotiated agreement that transfers risk from one party to the other."

Got that?

Then there were even fuzzier categories called "credit default swaps" and "default futures" to bet on.

You know, like the old pig in a poke, but no pig -- just some slicker shaking the sack and going oink.

Bob Hooper is a fourth-generation western Kansan who writes from his home in Bogue.

celtic@ruraltel.net