It's only a rant if he's wrong and he isn't. You should come here and spend some time. It would change your mind.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 2:14 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] Usual Krugman rant Paul Krugman is off on a typical rant this morning in the New York Times. He observes that unemployment will probably grow in the years ahead but says that there is "growing evidence that governing elite just doesn't care?" Of course they care! They care for their own skins in the coming years. Every conceivable type of government cares about unemployment, and has done so throughout history if it wants to maintain power and sleep easy. Paul Krugman refuses to entertain the idea that high and growing unemployment is structural. Why? Because, even after writing hundreds of op-eds over the years, he still thinks that Keynesianism can supply the solution. It might have done so in the 1930s when there was still a large tranche of still-expensive consumer goods awaiting mass production and purchase by a substantial proportion of the population. That's no longer the case. There's no long line of desirable consumer goods visible ahead of us. As regards existing goods, automation still proceeds. So "Congress is sitting on its hands" is it? And the Fed is not repeating inflation out of some sort of malignant obduracy, is it? (At least there are some officials who learn from their mistakes!) What's needed is not emotionalism on Krugman's part but some objective analysis in order to restore his status as a Nobel prize-winning economist and not a tub-thumper. Well, I'll give him some pointers. What we need -- and pretty soon, too -- is a total currency reform so that all advanced governments can write off their existing debts and not cripple our children and grandchildren with paying for their profligacy in the past few decades. And, from then onwards, a currency system that will make governments keep to sensible annual budgeting. We also need a substantial educational reform so that there'll be a demand pressure to expand or share the most interesting and highly-paid jobs. We also need substantial administrative/political reform so that we don't have a system whereby politicians have to selectively bribe this or that section of the electorate in order to remain in power. Keynes himself said something to the effect that governments always fall prey to outmoded ideas of a previous generation of economists. Well . . . that applies to economists, too. Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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