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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Fri May 8, 2015, 09:27 AM May 2015

Paul Krugman- Triumph of the Unthinking

“Words,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.” I’ve always loved that quote, and have tried to apply it to my own writing. But I have to admit that in the long slump that followed the 2008 financial crisis — a slump that we had both the tools and the knowledge to end quickly, but didn’t — the unthinking were quite successful in fending off unwelcome thoughts.

And nowhere was the triumph of inanity more complete than in Keynes’s homeland, which is going to the polls as I write this. Britain’s election should be a referendum on a failed economic doctrine, but it isn’t, because nobody with influence is challenging transparently false claims and bad ideas.

Before I bash the Brits, however, let me admit that we’ve done pretty badly ourselves.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/opinion/paul-krugman-triumph-of-the-unthinking.html?_r=0

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