Monday, August 09, 2010

How Did We Ever Get Along on 19% of GDP?

If we don't raise taxes, we'll all die in the dark.

So says Nobel Laureate and Chicken Little of the Left, Paul Krugman.

We need to continue to pave roads that lead to places where no one wants to go and pay teachers who don't have students to teach. We're going to heck in a handcart, as everyone can see who sets foot anywhere in our benighted Republic.

So spend, baby, spend! The gummit needs a blowout of borrowed money bigger than two thousand Gulf oil spills.

Here's what's really going on with the extremely nutty suggestions Krugman, in our view. It's two things, reflecting the fact that he is two things: an academic economist and a popular columnist.

As an academic economist, he has an equation that he believes shows that massive government spending would overcome the bad business environment left over from the financial crisis, prompting prosperity that will leave the government's deficit in a better position long term than it would be if spending were not so increased.

As a popular columnist, he gets the accolades of his sycophants every time he calls for taxing the rich and spending money on things that will fund the jobs of union members, including especially construction workers on government jobs and teachers in government schools. Such folk don't actually read his column, of course, but the people who do imagine themselves the intelligentsia who champion the downtrodden proletariat.

So with every column he screams that we simply need more of what hasn't helped yet. The man's not insincere; he's just egotistical.

Meanwhile, for a contrast, see the reasons why actual small-businessman Michael Fleischer isn't hiring, even though he needs to. And note the number of open jobs that presently are going very unfilled. The case is emerging that our attempts to fix things are creating disincentives for the needed corrections to the economy; that is, the doctor is doing harm.

3 comments:

Martin said...

I can't read the rest of what you said because you said "heck in a handcart."

Really?

I think that is akin to what would have happened had Dickens said that Marley was as dead as a coffin nail. Please don't disturb the saying with your unhallowed hands and let the wisdom of the ages prevail and say "to hell in a handcart" or the Country's done fore.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

We admit to being preoccupied with the concept of "heck" as a lesser version of Gehenna. Dilbert did an amusing series of strips years ago in which the protagonists was "darned to heck" by the Prince of Insufficient Light for the sin of taking office supplies home. His punishment was to have to eat lunch with the accountants.

More recently we have in another forum suggested that churches that want to present "hell houses" (haunted-house-style attractions in which patrons are subjected to Dante-esque recreations of torment with an invitation to faith in Jesus at the end) should instead try "heck houses," in which patrons would be subjected to various persistent irritations (people talking loudly on Bluetooth sets, Justin Bieber music, political ads, cold french fries, people wearing t-shirts with sanctimonious sayings) and then addressed as follows: "Would you like to spend eternity in a place like this? Well, this is merely heck. Imagine what hell will be like!"

Still, we think it's utterly cute to substitute a silly euphemism for a word that in another setting would be a mild oath. Maybe that's another way of subjecting you to the torments of heck.

Martin said...

Ah heck!