Economists' Petition

Perhaps it was just a prop, but Republican Senator Richard Shelby waved a petition that he and other senators had received from economists, arguing that Congress should slow down on the passage of the administration's $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, as if it really had made a difference to his own thinking.

The petition, initiated at the University of Chicago, presented a critique of the plan itself from economists of widely differing opinions about what in the end should be done, if anything.

Today's Chronicle of Higher Education as an interesting background piece on the petition and its call for deliberation, which should surely be interesting to students of rhetoric.

"Economists and the Bailout: For Once, a Petition Has an Impact," Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog, 26 September 2008.