what could have been.

The conservative mentality of building and taking profit, then abandoning communities, is destructive to everyone but themselves.

Those who decry public works and want all done by the private sector, are hit and run con artists, leaving nothing to future generations. They sing loudly the praises of private works and charities, as long as they get a cut.

Those New Deal programs have served those who were not yet born and beyond those who made them, as are some of Obama's changes and programs which get no media coverage, so those who don't know can hide behind conservative myths.

Krugman has described the 'knowing, worldly-wise cynics' very well. Their narrative of what government, Obama and the New Deal have done in the real world proves them to be no more than know-nothings.

that was our military industrial complex, ramped up for WWII, and never dismantled. WWII, to the Cold War, Korean War, Viet Nam war, Iraq I, Iraq II, Afghanistan, the War On Terror...

The last few years have proven conclusively that Social Security is no longer a 3rd rail, but military spending sure as shit is.

Ouchies for uberdick Niall Ferguson!



Krugman with the skillful slice.

an utter homophobe and bigot, three ways round.

That he also dwelled at some length on Keynes homosexuality in "The Pity of War" is also disturbing; apparently, he suggested in that text that Keynes may have been vociferously against the war merely because it was taking away his hot young cruising partners!

Truly, the guy is demented. (Not to mention that Wilfred Owen--from whom Ferguson took his title--has not been free of rumors...)

-Laelth

Enough of his nonsense!

Time to choose: Are you with Krugman? Or are you with God?

Spiritually yours,

Third-Way Manny

A good start would be to eliminate the tax dodges built into the code that only impact the wealthy.

A few months ago it was pointed out that current tax code gives corporations tax credits to offset the amount they pay out in executive stock option bonuses. Companies apply for a tax credit when they announce stock options for executives. In a recent year the tax credit to pay executive bonuses was $700 million for just Apple. Now we learn Apple is at it again. They have announced a $55 billion stock buyback. The way the tax code works Apple will avoid $9.5 billion in taxes, according to this article. Why the tax code has all of these goodies for the super wealthy while making sharp cuts to things like Head Start and Meals-On-Wheels just boggles the mind.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16177-apple-dodges-enough-taxes-to-cover-much-of-the-sequester

some like to compare Government to a family. But Government is neither.

It should be so simple - when the economy is down, Government still has borrowing power and can help create jobs and spend money to get cash flowing again. Once the economy is flourishing, this spending is no longer needed and government revenues increase. So, when the economy is down government needs to spend more to stimulate the economy. When the economy is up - that's the time for the government to pay down the deficits that it accrued during the down economy.

As I said, it should be so simple - why can't more people see this common sense approach?

Thank the universe for people like Krugman.

But our government is being run by greedy people, who have gamed the system.

Following the Civil War this nation went through many severe boom and bust cycles. Following one of those busts Teddy Roosevelt determined that we needed to break up the monopolies that were seen as a source for this. But the Tea Party of the day headed by William Howard Taft rejected the reforms Roosevelt put in and a wave of immigrants from Europe masked the impact of Taft's changes and fueled by war spending the nation had one more boom cycle before the granddaddy of busts called the Great Depression soon followed. It was out of this disaster that Keynes developed his common sense approach to the role of government in the various phases an economy goes through. That pretty much held sway until Ronald Reagan came into power. His supply side economic policy ushered in the steepest recession since the Great Depression. Some of that was unwound and the economy recovered but boom and bust cycles were returning. Bill Clinton righted that ship but George W. Bush came along and ushered in supply side but addressed only the tax side that ushered in huge deficits. But these were not ordinary tax cuts as they focused mostly on the very wealthy so the stimulus was almost non-existent and when coupled with deregulation sent the economy plunging over the cliff. Another Great Depression was avoided only when Congress adopted the TARP program under Bush (but with more Democratic votes than Republican votes) and the 2009 Stimulus bill that was straight out of the Keynes playbook. The Republican economic playbook continues to move rightward where they now propose to privatize much of what government does with the public still footing the bill but that will hamstring future applications of Keynes economic theory because government can no longer give the economy a quick boost during an economic downturn and instead set up new boom and bust cycles. When the philosophy is that government is the problem then what is common sense to you and me is something to be avoided like the plague. But make no mistake, the government is the problem approach is the problem. But corporations own MSM and that means the government is the problem folks are controlling the message and making it very hard for the message of the true common sense to be heard.