Because He Would Never Name N. Gregory Mankiw or R. Glenn Hubbard as Arsonists Screaming for a Fire Hose
Go read Mark Thoma. Because he’s a kinder, gentler human being than I am:
The time to stand up to the budget busting was when it happened, and when members of the list had the power to affect policy, not many years later in an article at Politico. Many on the list were either part of the decision making team in the 2000s that opened the hole in the budget, or supported what the team did.
Or, as The Pragmatic Capitalist said on Twitter (h/t Joe Weisenthal, whose own take on the cabal is here; translated into English):
So, 10 former White House economic advisers (who, judging by results, suck at their jobs) now say USA is bankrupt from high deficits.
Grandpa died last week
And now he’s buried in the rocks
But everybody still talks about
How badly they were shocked
But me, I expected it to happen
I knew he’d lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street
And shot it full of holes
Broke my a**. Getting tired of hearing that one. Unless of course they are using the middle class and below as a stand in for the nation as a whole. Which is just as wrong as saying the nation is broke.
Here’s an idea. We as a nation have assets. I don’t think we have borrowed even 80% of their value. How about we do the smart thing, borrow some of that wealth to put it back into making the assets more valuable (a little home improvement) then take that addtional wealth to add some new assets that will produce a greater income.
Or, we can keep acting like the very people the “we’re broke” crowd detest and keep spending the assets backed money feeding our faces, sitting on our couch, pumping up our ego’s watching the latest middle east version of Die Hard, or Terminator, or Air Force One or Star Wars.
God these people just…. They’re all a bunch of Howard Prescotts. They need to watch the movie with a lecture before hand telling them to study the contrasts between Prescott and Foster. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093936/
So what do you think? Is this group of august economists further evidence of the lack of scientific thinking being discussed on an earlier thread? Or, is the list and their dichotomous approach to the issue of deficit spending evidence to a complete lack of thinking of any kind?
I commented at Mark Thoma earlier, here is an updated/editted:
The 10 former CEA’s changed from “skeptical optimists”, who used to assume there was no debt wolf at the door as far as they could imagine (none were deficit hawks, when keeping the “party” going was the theme) they encouraged running up the debt, through tax cuts, and wars without tax increases, now they are taking the opposite position averse to deficits and that we need to treat debt which seems now a non issue (at least during a liquidity trap).
There remains excess demand for US treasury instruments, which they saw as competitive advantge while the were “skeptical optimists” on the inside.
In terms of decision making they went from assumers of risk, very similar to climate change deniers, to avid risk avoiders.
The question is why?
So, let’s ask if they changed their minds about the problems, then they should see their bad decisions to lower taxes was the issue and decide to raise taxes.
Deficits are delayed taxes. Let the holders of T Bills, pay the taxes which were not collected to create those T Bills. Rather than reducing the survival level consumption of the poor and the aged with “benefit cuts”.
See: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/03/the-worm-ouroboros-internet-edition.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BradDelongsSemi-dailyJournal+%28Brad+DeLong%27s+Semi-Daily+Journal%29
And: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/03/why-i-would-not-have-signed-on-to-a-letter-endorsing-simpson-bowles-as-the-starting-point-for-long-term-budget-negotiations.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BradDelongsSemi-dailyJournal+%28Brad+DeLong%27s+Semi-Daily+Journal%29
Perhaps the Fairies are doing mischievous around the Spring Equinox.
I have realized that Ben Bernanke and his Board of Directors (the big banks) have decided what the price of a share of stock will be, and when. They have been doing this for so long that we outsiders think it is a “fwee market”. Think how the jerkoffs running the Economics Profession would feel if they admitted that their is no such thing as a free market. It is a concept, like Grace for Catholics.
Think about what the last 30 years has been about. A rising stock market even though the wages of 99% of the people have been falling. How is that possible ? It isn’t except that the whole concept of free markets is bullshit. Hey, Berny Maddoff worked alone and the reason there is not a “no fly zone ” over Gaza is because ?
Day traders will allways lose. They are not sitting in the meeting when they decide what the price will be. Get It.
Wow, I never heard that version. I still like the Blonde on Blonde one better.
Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb
They all fall there so perfectly
It all seems so well timed
An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice
—————————————–
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-0