Against Learned Helplessness

[phantom power]

Bear in mind that the unemployed aren’t jobless because they don’t want to work, or because they lack the necessary skills. There’s nothing wrong with our workers — remember, just four years ago the unemployment rate was below 5 percent.

The core of our economic problem is, instead, the debt — mainly mortgage debt — that households ran up during the bubble years of the last decade. Now that the bubble has burst, that debt is acting as a persistent drag on the economy, preventing any real recovery in employment. And once you realize that the overhang of private debt is the problem, you realize that there are a number of things that could be done about it.

For example, we could have W.P.A.-type programs putting the unemployed to work doing useful things like repairing roads — which would also, by raising incomes, make it easier for households to pay down debt. We could have a serious program of mortgage modification, reducing the debts of troubled homeowners. We could try to get inflation back up to the 4 percent rate that prevailed during Ronald Reagan’s second term, which would help to reduce the real burden of debt.

So there are policies we could be pursuing to bring unemployment down. These policies would be unorthodox — but so are the economic problems we face. And those who warn about the risks of action must explain why these risks should worry us more than the certainty of continued mass suffering if we do nothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30krugman.html?_r=1&hp

[bemildred]

1. Well done Mr Krugman. nt

[msongs]

2. unfortunately we do not have a political class that values Krugman's suggestions nt

[izquierdista]

5. Instead, they value Larry Summers

Harvard hasn't had a pile like that since they quit grazing cattle in the Yard.

[snot]

3. K&R'd

[azul]

4. Learned justice.

Capitalism is a scheme of bets. A bunch of banks and businesses made bets lending money to millions of people. They lost the bets but won't give up the debts without misery and enslavement.

Businesses are chartered by the public to do some public service or job, not just to make money. When some business goes from doing some service to doing people harm, it is incumbent upon the public to kill or dissolve the wayward business.

Usury is the crime, stiffen and enforce the laws. Money should not have this power to ruin and control people's lives.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. k to the r

[kickysnana]

7. My problem with Suzie Orman is that she only reacts..

They changed the rules in mid stream and she tells you how to navigate the new rules but shuts down any mention of being proactive to get the economy/society we deserve.

There is nothing to stop them from systematically looting more and more of earnings from the lower 98% with schemes and bad laws.

[Kat45]

8. "Learned helplessness" is a perfect description of what's going on.

I wish those in power would listen to economists like Krugman, rather than the ones they do listen to.