The thing Krugman never quite seems to accept is that conservative politicians don’t really care about reality, only their ideology. And the ideology is only a cover for the same old old philosophy: Take care of the rich, screw everyone else. “Facts” have nothing to do with it:
So the whole notion of perma-stimulus is fantasy posing as hardheaded realism. Still, even if you don’t believe that stimulus is forever, Keynesian economics says not just that you should run deficits in bad times, but that you should pay down debt in good times. And it’s silly to imagine that this will happen, right?
Wrong. The key measure you want to look at is the ratio of debt to G.D.P., which measures the government’s fiscal position better than a simple dollar number. And if you look at United States history since World War II, you find that of the 10 presidents who preceded Barack Obama, seven left office with a debt ratio lower than when they came in. Who were the three exceptions? Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. So debt increases that didn’t arise either from war or from extraordinary financial crisis are entirely associated with hard-line conservative governments.
And there’s a reason for that association: U.S. conservatives have long followed a strategy of “starving the beast,” slashing taxes so as to deprive the government of the revenue it needs to pay for popular programs.
The funny thing is that right now these same hard-line conservatives declare that we must not run deficits in times of economic crisis. Why? Because, they say, politicians won’t do the right thing and pay down the debt in good times. And who are these irresponsible politicians they’re talking about? Why, themselves.
To me, it sounds like a fiscal version of the classic definition of chutzpah — namely, killing your parents, then demanding sympathy because you’re an orphan. Here we have conservatives telling us that we must tighten our belts despite mass unemployment, because otherwise future conservatives will keep running deficits once times improve.
Put this way, of course, it sounds silly. But it isn’t; it’s tragic. The disastrous turn toward austerity has destroyed millions of jobs and ruined many lives. And it’s time for a U-turn.
Agreed. There is no real underlying philosophy there. It’s not that they are trying to figure out how to make this country and world better for everyone in it, but are simply convinced (in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary) that theirs is best way to accomplish this common goal. Their way is, “I am gonna get mine, fuck the country, world and everyone else in it.” Their alleged values change to support whatever course of action benefits them. Real values aren’t so temporary and pliable.
It’s because we don’t share common goals that bipartisanship is pointless. Hares don’t reach across the aisle and try to figure out a way to work with jackals, and neither should anyone else.
I think it not only promotes the interests of the 1%, but it also directs and intensifies the fear and anger of the 99%. Instead of looking at what is really destroying the middle/working class, they are focused on ‘cheaters’ and ‘big government.’
The Right—the Republicans—do have an underlying philosophy. They have always had one. Mussolini and the Catholic Church called it Fascism. Hitler called it National Socialism. Today’s Republicans call if Free Market Capitalism. What it is is Hayekian economics. It’s the product of Friedrich Hayek. Keynesian (John Maynard Keynes) economics is just another form of Capitalism. Capitalism is done. It’s finished. Kaput. We need to be moving much faster toward a Socialist economic system. Krugman is just delaying the process by twisting himself into unnatural intellectual shapes and then trying to explain how he managed to “think in that way.” Obama is a Capitalist because he’s a jerk.
@ 3 — Obama is a Corporatist capitalist because the people he learned what he knows about economics came from the One Percent or very close to it.
His wealth also came from pleasing them.
He does understand quite well where the butter comes from that covers his bread. or something like that….