On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Jerry Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: > > "Yet as others have observed, if you asked the right questions the great > bulk of Americans would say they are both liberal and conservative > socially liberal, that is, but fiscally conservative." > > As well as Krugman shutting up, I agree with this line.
The article had some interesting points and I'm glad that it wasn't written in the same bombastic tone as the headline. The bit I found most interesting was this: "Good stuff, and who knows? Maybe hes right. Yet the idea that you can more or less indefinitely keep putting off deficit reduction until the economy is firing on all cylinders again just looks like an excuse to me for continuing to spend at unaffordable levels. He accuses the Tories of being ideological in their single minded pursuit of deficit reduction, and of using the crisis to dismantle the welfare state, yet he conveniently skirts around the underlying issue, which is in essence that the country can no longer afford this expenditure." The author admits that Krugman is basically right on the facts as they currently stand but feels that people will keep saying "put off the deficit reduction" even when the economy does recover. And there is ample evidence that he's right, I mean, when you're running a bit of a surplus, there is usually more desire for tax cuts than there is austerity measures and paying down the debt. That's a problem with people and leadership though, not with economics. Krugman is correct on the economics but I agree that doing the right thing in a time of trouble doesn't mean that people would then do the right thing in a time of plenty. Then we get to the second part of that paragraph in which he says that Krugman ignores the reality that they have to change the welfare state. That may be the case, I don't know, I'm really not up on the structural deficit in the UK. The problem I have with this article is that after making this bald statement, that "the country" can no longer afford this expenditure, he then goes on to wander back and forth between the US (citing statistics on self-identification with liberal, conservative, moderate) and the UK (citing Krugman's historic look at debt levels). The US and the UK don't have the same welfare system, they don't have the same defense expenditure levels (which he brings in as an argument for cutting welfare but only mentions the UK's significantly smaller expenditures)...they are very different economies. Yet he conflates them together and uses ambiguous phrases like "the country" that lead the reader to assume that he's talking about whatever they want to take away from it. The Tories austerity measures might be a good thing, I really don't know. This article, though, doesn't do a good job of laying out a case for either the UK or the US though and just tries to cherry pick bits and pieces from both countries in an effort to make something that will appeal to the ideological-minded. Dude's got an ax to grind. Hell, it is even one I agree with in the broadest sense..."Wars are expensive and we should lower the public debt". Right on. You know what? Krugman likely agrees with that too. The difference is a question of how and when to tackle those items. I'd like to see us start, right away, to realize savings in our defense industry. As we start climbing out of our economic hole, we need to look at real health care reform that will stabilize our soaring health care expenditures. And longer term, we need to look at retirement plans, social security, the care of the elderly, etc and be forward looking about how we are going to deal with the trends of increased life span and decreased birth rates. As unemployment finally trends down, we need to look at paying down the debt in addition to looking at structural cost issues. All of these things are true. But like I said, a lot of it is a question of how and when. Cheers, J ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:330062 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
