Krugman Speaks

Under no circumstances should we revert and put the Repubs back in charge - they're either crazy or evil or something else.  When I look back on what was happening all thru the 90s and then especially what was going on with Junior Bush, I feel a little sick.  It's important to remember that it's possible Junior wasn't the fuckup he seems to have been.  There's a fair probability that he did it all on purpose - he didn't really know what was going on; he's just an empty vessel, incapable of fully understanding the damage resulting from his policy decisions.  He did what he was told to do by all those really smart guys he had around him.

Those smart guys are still with us, and Professor Krugman explains a little about what they're up to.

Late last year the conventional wisdom on economic policy took a hard right turn. Even though the world’s major economies had barely begun to recover, even though unemployment remained disastrously high across much of America and Europe, creating jobs was no longer on the agenda. Instead, we were told, governments had to turn all their attention to reducing budget deficits.

Skeptics pointed out that slashing spending in a depressed economy does little to improve long-run budget prospects, and may actually make them worse by depressing economic growth. But the apostles of austerity — sometimes referred to as “austerians” — brushed aside all attempts to do the math. Never mind the numbers, they declared: immediate spending cuts were needed to ward off the “bond vigilantes,” investors who would pull the plug on spendthrift governments, driving up their borrowing costs and precipitating a crisis. Look at Greece, they said.

Don't get fooled again.