The Phantom Menace - Krugman

[groovedaddy]

A funny thing happened on the way to a new New Deal. A year ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the reigning doctrine in Washington appears to be “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

What happened? To be sure, “centrists” in the Senate have hobbled efforts to rescue the economy. But the evidence suggests that in addition to facing political opposition, President Obama and his inner circle have been intimidated by scare stories from Wall Street.

Consider the contrast between what Mr. Obama’s advisers were saying on the eve of his inauguration, and what he himself is saying now.

In December 2008 Lawrence Summers, soon to become the administration’s highest-ranking economist, called for decisive action. “Many experts,” he warned, “believe that unemployment could reach 10 percent by the end of next year.” In the face of that prospect, he continued, “doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much.”

Ten months later unemployment reached 10.2 percent, suggesting that despite his warning the administration hadn’t done enough to create jobs. You might have expected, then, a determination to do more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/opinion/23krugman.html?th&emc=th

[AnneD]

1. Revenge of the Sith....

So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause. SCARIEST LINE I EVER HEARD IN A MOVIE.

[mother earth]

2. Krugman is right, but without cleaning up the corruption and

making the scoundrels from Bush to the Fed accountable, everything is just yadda-yadda-yadda, more of the same. We are spinning wheels and getting nowhere. There's no recovery on the agenda, this was done purposefully, and the greatest criminals of all time are free and their pockets are full. Our country is still in the stranglehold.

[Prometheuspan]

3. the basics of the economy are still screwwt.

Giving money to vampires and putting vampires on life support does not help the economy.

It helps the vampires, sure... but... why?

If we had let the vampires die, the results would have been about the same in any case, and we could have come up out of that
dark night booming the economy spending it on things that matter instead of billionaire bonuses.

The simple truth is that the economy tanked because the vampires drained the blood from the bottom. Bush and co sent 50 million people from middle class to poverty. Theres not enough blood left to suck. Unless of course you prop the system up...
but that just puts us right back where we started, trillions of dollars poorer, two years later.

The core problem is not solved by giving more money to the rich, its solved by bringing people out of poverty.