quoting krugman on smart economic policy is akin to quoting ghengis khan on welfare and human rights. what the high priest of Keynesian theory fails to mention here is that, if the country's far-reaching entitlement society had not given the keys to the city away in the first place, we'd never be where we are. we'd never have tough choices to bear. to call this a "kick in the sac" to the right is plain asinine. cuts are coming, not because it is a right/left thing, because there is simply no other choice as the money is all gone.
exactly. yambags like krugman (and, perhaps, the OP if he follows the krugman philosophy) dont get that this style of living is unaffordable. anywhere. it has failed time and time again. you cannot spend more than you take in. well, you actually can, but only for a set amount of time. so immediately, the solution for the left is to "tax more" and get more money. but eventually you run out of all of that, too, as those you tax either leave, decide that providing output is simply no longer advantageous, or end up taxed to the hilt. and still, you outgrow the amount of income needed to spend against an increasing expenditure (population). only idiots follow krugman. you can find thousands of bloggers online who know a lot more about economics than krugman, and they all point to the same thing - he is a complete jackass when it comes to economics. prize or not. only the uninformed think krugman knows what he is talking about.
Oh, he gets it. He does not believe that society can work its way out of the debt hole if nobody is working. All he is saying is that now is not the right time for big spending cuts.
Nothing in particular, I looked up some stats and simply thought I'd post them since I went to the trouble.
but he doesn't understand the simple fact that if we did not cut spending when times were good, we have no choice but to cut them when times are bad. end of the line, captain. his article would have been nice 30 or so years ago.
The right fails to acknowledge that the massive increase in deficit spending is a response, right or wrong, to the massive republican recession and massive unemployment that resulted under the republicans and the massive financial meltdown and real estate bubble that happened on the republicans watch. What is the republican's solution for the Bush recession and all the other problems that happened on their watch. Take responsibility republicans.
Socialism works in countries that don't spend massive amounts of tax revenue on being the world's policemen. The question is that if America receded from being the world's policeman, how much would that impact our economy at home? What if the money spent on the insane wars in the middle east had been spent on securing our own border, and making us energy independent? Cut our defense budget in half, are we less safe, or less capable of exporting our brand of "democracy" in the name of capital investments? Given the change in world economy, does it really make sense for our military and foreign policy to be grounded in cold war spending on the military?
The extreme right is pushing for a shutdown of the government. Though it would be devastating to many people of America, I have to wonder if the outcome would be positive for the GOP? Seems like a real shutdown, and not being able to fund programs would impact the economy quite negatively in the short run, and that perhaps that might just benefit Obama in the long run. Surely the problems that might come from such a shutdown will further divide our country...but the have nots will perhaps rethink the position of supporting the party of the haves. The republicans plan is not to take responsibility for anything. They are hoping that 2012 is bad for most Americans, and they are hoping that they can blame Obama for everything that is bad. Meanwhile, what have the newly elected republicans in the House actually done to create jobs?
It is wrong. My solution is leave Iraq, Leave Afghanistan, leave Libya, massive spending cuts across the board and reduce the size and intrusion of federal government. Unfortunately though I don't speak for the republicans.