Bush is a con man and he restates why his policy prescriptions are right and have been right

Krug makes clear that while the debunked debt v growth authors may not have agreed with austerity now, but the fact that they let their work be used to support it without complaining for the past couple years means they in essence supported it.  Krug also makes clear he doesn’t believe a compromise between stimulus now and austerity later is workable in the current political climate.

Krug makes it clear that the US is not engaged in stimulus spending right now.  Compared to Europe, American spending is not quite as austerian but when looking at total spending ratio to GDP (including state and local) it is actually low historically.  Thus in Krug’s view spend, spend, spend to get the economy moving.

Krug is very mad at smart people who he feels are acting dumb and don’t bother to try and understand the austerity vs stimulus arguments.  Specifically he calls out Ken Langone (billionaire who helped start Home Depot and namesake of NYU’s business school) for saying in essence the debate is too complicated for him.  Krug takes the opportunity to restate his economic positions in clear language and continues with this in his Monday column.  My attempt at a very concise summary of his points: a) government budget is not like a family budget b) because of the financial crisis people have been forced to cut spending thus there is no actor in the economy to spend and this leads to unemployment c) this is situation is not always the case – it is rare – and during this time the government and private sector are not in competition for scare capital, the private sector is not spending so if the government doesn’t we won’t ever get out of this mess. d) proof is that his view of what has happened over the past four years have come to pass while the opposing side’s predictions have not.  Examples include continued low inflation, low interest rates, austerity policies in Europe have led to depressions e) yes the deficit must eventually be lowered but in a depressed economy now is not the time to do it.

Krug makes himself clear, money printing by the Feb can’t solve our problems – increased government spending has a more direct, lasting effect.

Krugman than goes on to explain why he is not so nice during these tough economic times.  He feels the policy decisions being taken are directly leading to people’s hardships and it does not have to be this way.  He says he woudn’t normally be this way but the times demand it.

There is also a post about Bush’s legacy – basically he thinks Bush was the biggest loser President ever, he call him a ‘con man”. Mainly because he said he lied about Iraq and the tax cuts early in his Presidency and these lies and subsequent policies are having a last effect.  Now I try not to bring my view points too much into this blog – but now I cannot resist.  I could not disagree more with this post. Now I don’t believe that Bush was a super president but seriously – Bush is the reason for the downfall of America – come on.  I hate to say this but thank god for the financial crisis, as Krug says in this post he has been focused on economic matters due to necessity, if not he would have more articles like this which are not proved in fact and just rants by a political hack.  I don’t for the life of me know he demeans himself like this.  Ahh maybe because it keeps us coming back for the theater of it all…