Paul Krugman:Their Own Private Europe

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1296183650-xIU4AJMUvjOkdYkQ2U/MeQ

President Obama’s State of the Union address was a ho-hum affair. But the official Republican response, from Representative Paul Ryan, was really interesting. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

Mr. Ryan made highly dubious assertions about employment, health care and more. But what caught my eye, when I read the transcript, was what he said about other countries: “Just take a look at what’s happening to Greece, Ireland, the United Kingdom and other nations in Europe. They didn’t act soon enough; and now their governments have been forced to impose painful austerity measures: large benefit cuts to seniors and huge tax increases on everybody.”

It’s a good story: Europeans dithered on deficits, and that led to crisis. Unfortunately, while that’s more or less true for Greece, it isn’t at all what happened either in Ireland or in Britain, whose experience actually refutes the current Republican narrative.

But then, American conservatives have long had their own private Europe of the imagination — a place of economic stagnation and terrible health care, a collapsing society groaning under the weight of Big Government. The fact that Europe isn’t actually like that — did you know that adults in their prime working years are more likely to be employed in Europe than they are in the United States? — hasn’t deterred them. So we shouldn’t be surprised by similar tall tales about European debt problems.

[RainDog]

1. LOL. I know - I've read so much bullshit from right wingers about Europe

for decades... talking about the decline because of a social safety net... while Northern Europe has outperformed union-decimated, corporate-loving, education-hating right wing America for the last decade at least.

and will continue to as long as the right wing keeps its hands on the throat of the American people, squeezing every last penny from the middle and working class, and then wonder why people's eyes are popping out their heads.

you just wonder, sometimes, how they can lie without ever facing any accountability.

oh yeah, that's what the media is supposed to be about. but we have Fux News.

[applegrove]

2. LOL. Well said.

[unkachuck]

3. +1

[demigoddess]

4. because tea baggers never go to europe, they think of it

as being like right after WWII. I have lived in europe twice and I know they have good lives over there. And since spain got rid of Franco they have really gone to town and grown quite a bit.

[spooky3]

5. exactly. I have a Repub. acquaintance who is a partner in a law firm

has made tons of $$$, but has never been outside the country. He'd rather spend the money on going to sports events.

[tsuki]

7. Son went to UK about a year ago. He said he saw Americans all

over the UK, but they stayed in tight groups, and did not mix. He said it was strange.

[krabigirl]

11. Many people from all over the world do that, travel in big groups and don't mix.

[DonCoquixote]

6. to be fair

Europeans, for reasons both righteous and foul, are not really tourist friendly.

[eridani]

10. I find that they are lots friendlier if you attempt to communicate in their language

What usually happens then is that we both discover that their English is way better than my feeble assaults on their language, so the conversation moves to English. They do appreciate the effort, though.

[Martin Eden]

8. K&R

Krugman really knows how to lay bare the nonsense of the Republican narrative.

[applegrove]

9. It is a common thing for neocons, who believe in the big lie, to try and

destroy any example of "good government". So they try and destroy health care reform, not because it will not work & save money, but because it is an example of government doing a great job. Same thing with trying to destroy the examples of great government in europe.