Paul Krugman:The Real Story

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman

Next week, President Obama is scheduled to propose new measures to boost the economy. I hope they’re bold and substantive, since the Republicans will oppose him regardless — if he came out for motherhood, the G.O.P. would declare motherhood un-American. So he should put them on the spot for standing in the way of real action.

But let’s put politics aside and talk about what we’ve actually learned about economic policy over the past 20 months.

When Mr. Obama first proposed $800 billion in fiscal stimulus, there were two groups of critics. Both argued that unemployment would stay high — but for very different reasons.

(snip)
The actual lessons of 2009-2010, then, are that scare stories about stimulus are wrong, and that stimulus works when it is applied. But it wasn’t applied on a sufficient scale. And we need another round.

[tularetom]

1. Ain't gonna happen

What we need is a massive public works program which will create jobs and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. A much more effective means of jump starting our sputtering economy than giving more money to bankers for them to hoard rather than loan.

But someone has convinced our president that deficits are more important than jobs. So we need to economize in order to reduce deficits. Of course this doesn't mean that we should raise taxes on bazillionaires in order to reduce those deficits.

If the Democrats lose the house and maybe the senate it won't be because a bunch of wacked out bigots march around with posters showing the President with a bone through his nose or a Hitler mustache. It'll be because a lot of normal people are unemployed, broke, homeless and/or desperate, and have lost faith in either party to help them. So they just won't vote.

[ThomCat]

2. I agree with everything you wrote.

Every word of it. :(