The New York Times on October 13th featured an article, “Across the U.S. Long Recovery Looks Like Recession”. Currently we are making a slow recovery from the recession in the United States. They have done as much as they can do already, but what more can be done? And if the government steps in and does more, will that just make the economy worse? At the moment there is still a low unemployment rate and not enough jobs to go around. Foreclosure although improving is still pretty high and the housing market is still down as well. The best thing at this point for the Fed to do is to wait it out.
In the scene of the Odyssey with Circe and Odysseus we see a comparable situation. Odysseus learns from Circe that he has 2 terrible encounters ahead of him and that he must choose one. The choice is between Scylla and Charibdys. No matter which path Odysseus chooses these two monsters will lead to impending death. Circe advises Odysseus that the best choice would be to steadily row straight through Scylla because, “[b]etter by far to lose six men and keep your ship than lose your entire crew.” (A, 402) If he chooses Charibdys the entire ship would be engulfed by the whirlpool. Odysseus initially questions his ability to fight of Scylla, but Circe advises him that the best course of action is to just row straight along through the monster. This is similar to the situation spoken about by economist Barry Eichengreen of the University of California: “But we’re going to be living with the overhang of our financial and debt problems for a long, long time to come.” These unavoidable hardships we are to face in the U.S. as a result of the recession create a great parallel to the previously mentioned situation from the Odyssey.
