Brian Domitrovic - The emergence of Arthur Laffer : the foundations of supply-side economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966-1976

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For supply of information central to this books content, Arthur Laffer has been both forthcoming about his life and career and helpful in finding, and often acquiring, further relevant sources. All six children in the Laffer family have been distinctly helpful as well, if Arthur Jr. and Rachel may be singled out. At the Laffer firm, Mike Madzin, Randi Butler, Nick Drinkwater, Kenny Smith, and Richard Neikirk have been of great assistance. Thanks as well go to Dick Strong, Bob Mundell, Valerie Natsios-Mundell, Mark Molesky, Steve Forbes, Robert Leeson, Nathan Lewis, Ralph Benko, Larry Kudlow, Don Critchlow, Marc Miles, Chuck Kadlec, Pinar Emiralioglu, Brian Jordan, Tony Batman, and Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield. And thanks go to Sam Houston State University and the staffs of archival collections, including those held at the Richard M. Nixon Library, the Harry S. Truman Library, the Duke University Libraries, the University of Chicago Library, the MIT Libraries, the Economists Papers Archive at the Duke University Libraries, and depositories at Stanford and Yale.

In Philip Roths 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, the protagonist, a young man who lives in the old section of Newark, is amazed at the prosperity he finds in the homes of some of his friends, including in the Short Hills, New Jersey, spread of the young lady he is courting. On the main floor of her home he finds himself chilling in the steady coolness of air by Westinghouse . The sporting goods on the lawnthese are a sight. Outside, through the wide picture window, I could see the back lawn with its twin oak trees, this protagonist, one Neil Klugman, narrates. I say oaks, though fancifully, one might call them sporting-goods trees. Beneath their branches, like fruit dropped from their limbs, were two irons, a golf ball, a tennis can, a baseball bat, basketball, a first-basemans glove, and what was apparently a riding crop. Soon to be discovered were a basketball court and a stopwatch. He goes down to her familys basement and finds the refrigerator in that smartly renovated space to be heaped with fruit, shelves swelled with it, every color, every texture, and hidden within, every kind of pit. There are three kinds of plums, long horns of grapes, nectarines, peaches, various melons, and cherries, cherries flowing out of boxes and staining everything scarlet. He marvels at these people. Fruit grew in their refrigerator and sporting goods dropped from their trees! This is not to mention the familys country club, or even the municipal tennis courts and running tracks. Everything is so nice. And Neil always has a good time using all the stuff with his girlfriend and her family. Her father had built a little business installing bathroom porcelain.

The point of the novella appears to be that Neil cannot let his rather mild mean and indifferent side from intruding on his courting of the young woman, and the force of this petty trait makes them break up. He looks at his reflection in her college-library window and asks himself why he cannot simply take advantage of the good things that he has before him. It was a tough question, and Roth did not answer it. This was the closing vignette of the book. What was it that had turned winning into losing, Neil asks himself as he stares at his reflection, wondering what unknown counterproductive forces are inside his head, allowing and losingwho knowsinto winning?