Two things as highlighted. 1. The Conservatives are being allowed to get away with building the myth that Labour went crazy with public spending. They did not. For several years public spending was well in line with govt income and then a conscious decision was taken to spend more in order to revitalise the likes of schools and hosptials in this country. It had to be done and the Tories agreed with all those spending plans at the time. Then you get a financial crisis which demands more govt spending at a time of fallign tax revenues. Not an instance of crazy Labour profligacy. 2. All this nonsense about the cuts to the public sector being taken up by the private sector is madness and we're all about to find out how mad. Normally they might have a point about private sector growth if they were planning to do something that they might argue would stimulate the economy - like tax cuts. But we aren't getting that. How can you really expect the private sector to grow when you lay off 0.5 million public workers and when the economic outlook remains rocky? Who is going to be spending the money that will drive this private growth? Who will be driving the building industry? The holiday industry? Any industry?
The US doesn't have a UHC, and our economy is just as fucked, so I don't see how that's any correlation to the problem.
Massive deficits are a huge negative for the economy. At its most basic, businesses and private people tend to spend less in anticipation of new taxes and the uncertainty surrounding the health of the economy. No, the deficit does not have to be zero, but the astronomical rate of growth of deficit spending and it's unsustainability at anything approaching current rates have definitely had a huge negative impact on the economy.
Ireland has the same deficit problem and the government decided to use austerity measures. Now we're on the verge of national bankrupcy. National budgets are not like personal budgets. Cutting expenditure back to match income in a recession doesn't work. Every cut to expenditure results in a multiplier effect in the economy, and ultimately results in less income for the state, resulting in a bigger deficit rather than a smaller one.
Krugman should just shut the hell up. He is an idiot. He is a witch-doctor that games his pseudo-science to support his ideology.
They'd have to be minimal, consider the statement you quoted. Do you realize 13 states - including California - is on the verge of bancrupcy? and the rest aren't far behind.
Jenee, you realize that things like paying for medical care for illegals are one of the big things bankrupting states like California... right?
Largely a 'I disagree for no stated reasons' piece. Again peddling the notion that we've been overspending like mad instead of the truth which is that we overspent for a particular reason, at a particular time and then got fucked by the financial crisis.
Look if you fuckers want Krugman then please take his dumb ass and keep him. Krugman is the idiot whose mad at Obama for not spending us even further into debt.
While I don't think you're one of them, PGT, I have certainly heard that line of reasoning applied by members of the Church of Global Warming as well.
You're right, I'm not one of them. I tend to have actual issues with some of the things said about global warming.
Ahh, the Torygraph. Are you really looking for guidance from the paper which endorsed Adolf Hitler even after the invasion of Poland? Seriously?