The Politics of Economics in the Age of Shouting

[mgc1961]

I share a virtual neighborhood with a legion of Times reporters, editors and columnists who know more than I will ever know about business and economics. (Look! Right over there: a Nobel-prize-winning economist!) In this humbling company, on this intimidating matter, who am I to tell anyone what to think? And so my plan was, frankly, to avoid the subject.

But while there are things a columnist can ignore (if Kim Kardashian ever features in this column, just shoot me), our failing economic ecosystem is not one of them. So for the past several weeks my airplane and bedside reading has consisted of sexy documents like “A Roadmap for America’s Future” and “The Way Forward” and “The Moment of Truth” and “Restoring America’s Future” and “Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future.” I’ve also reached out to a few economists respected for the integrity of their science and their patience with economic illiterates.

The first thing I gleaned from this little tutorial will probably not surprise you: There really is a textbook way to fix our current mess. Short-term stimulus works to help an economy recover from a recession. Some kinds of stimulus pay off more quickly than others. Once the economic heart is pumping again, we need to get our deficits under control. The way to do that is a balance of spending cuts, increased tax revenues and entitlement reforms. There is room to argue about the proportions and the timing, and small differences can produce large consequences, but the basic formula is not only common sense, it is mainstream economic science, tested many times in the real world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/opinion/keller-the-politics-of-economicsthe-politics-of-economics.html?pagewanted=1&hp

[PETRUS]

1. In the midst of a reasonable sounding column.

There's this:

"There really is a textbook way to fix our current mess. Short-term stimulus works to help an economy recover from a recession. Some kinds of stimulus pay off more quickly than others. Once the economic heart is pumping again, we need to get our deficits under control. The way to do that is a balance of spending cuts, increased tax revenues and entitlement reforms."

If by "entitlement reforms" he means expand and improve Medicare to cover everyone as a national, single payer program and reign in the influence of the insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical equipment manufacturers so we can control costs, yes. If he means anything else, then he's been just as snowed by the noise machine his column complains about.