The level of B.S. in this commentary is off the charts. Kudos to the reporter for sounding at least a little suspicious. It used to be hard for me to believe that this can be coming from a Princeton professor, Nobel Prize winner and NY Times columnist, but I think over the course of the past few years, my respect for those institutions has sunken to a more appropriate level.
Incidentally, I predicted Krugman’s call for additional stimulus over a year ago after seeing him speak at the University of Iowa:
When Paul Krugman furrowed his brow and stroked his chin and told the audience that the Obama administration’s plan to create 3.5 million jobs is . . . here he slowed his speech, demonstrating his thoughtfulness . . . “about the right size,” he neglected to elaborate on how government creates jobs.
If government has the power to create 3.5 million jobs, what is the moral justification for stopping at 3.5 million? Why not 4 million, or 10 million? Why not 150 million, so America’s entire labor force can feed from the government trough?
The fact is that government cannot create jobs. Government can only redirect them. Taxes must destroy private sector jobs which produce goods and services people want, so that government may pay for public sector jobs, which exist for political reasons.
The stimulus will make us poorer, and when it does so, Mr. Krugman will furrow his brow and stroke his chin and tell us very thoughtfully that it probably wasn’t big enough.
He cautioned against the “temptation to dwell on the causes of the bubble,” which seems completely nonsensical to me. . . . .