Paul Krugman: Fools and Fixers

[cal04]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/fools-and-fixers/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

(snip)
In the world according to Stebbins, debt and deficits are at the heart of America’s economic problem. He doesn’t even make the case — he just claims that it’s obvious according to the facts. No notion whatsoever that we might have slow growth because we’re reducing the deficit too fast; no acknowledgment that the empirical case for debt panic has collapsed. You get the sense that he’s completely unaware of the actual debates that have taken place about economic policy, probably unaware of how much the actual deficit and forecasts of future debt have changed. So he’s angry at Washington for not facing up to a fake problem.

And on the political side, it’s all false equivalence. The AARP, fighting against cuts to benefits, is just like Republicans threatening to plunge us into debt crisis if Obama doesn’t kill health reform. The Club for Growth, threatening any Republican who steps out of line, is just like … me, making fun of groups like Fix the Debt.

In short, this particular CEO comes across as completely out of touch with the reality of our economic and political situation. And then he wonders why politicians won’t listen to people like him.

The thing is, I suspect that he’s typical. Corporate America is led by men who may be very good at their jobs (or not, in some cases), but have no grasp at all of the real issues facing America as a whole — the special problems created by an economy stuck in a liquidity trap, the paralysis caused by the radicalization of the GOP. They can throw lots of money at Washington, and it’s effective at tilting policies on microeconomic issues their way. But they have no influence on the big decisions, because they don’t even understand what those big decisions are.

‘Shame on us’: How businesses brought the debt limit mess onto themselves
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/29/shame-on-us-how-businesses-brought-the-debt-limit-mess-onto-themselves/

On Friday, we noted that CEOs of major American companies are not a little exasperated at what's going on in Washington. Some of them, though, recognize that they were part of the problem to begin with. World Fuel Services chairman Paul Stebbins -- a Georgetown government major who now runs a company ranked 74 on the Fortune 100 -- didn't need much prompting to describe how things went wrong, how corporate guys are withholding money from PACs that aren't part of the solution, and why they'd rather pay more taxes to make the uncertainty go away.

[onethatcares]

1. very sensible article

because this bullshit of emergency funding every 6 months is stupider than hell.