Paul is at it again

Edited to prevent nausea.


So Paul opines again. Stupid beyond belief as he is, he thinks...hey we just didn't spend enough of what we don't have. We needed to spend our children's, children's, children's money.


The whole point of the tea party movement is...stay the hell out of the way. Yes, believe it or not, we can function without long term unemployment insurance. The marketplace can decide on an energy policy. The lefties have successfully changed the argument to degree, as in what degree to you need our help? A lot, or do you just want us to take over the whole thing?

By PAUL KRUGMAN


If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. No Paul it will be a referendum on competence.  President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states — was more conservative than his election platform.   So, Paul,  the electorate is just too stupid to understand? 
The real story of this election, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task. So a couple of trillion just won't do?

If you look back now at the economic forecast originally used to justify the Obama economic plan, what’s striking is that forecast’s optimism about the economy’s ability to heal itself. Really Paul, you dumb ass, the American Economy could not have healed itself without astute central planning?  Let's take a vote on that little subject, oh, we are going to, how do you think things will turn out?  Even without their plan, Obama economists predicted, the unemployment rate would peak at 9 percent, then fall rapidly. Fiscal stimulus was needed only to mitigate the worst — as an “insurance package against catastrophic failure,” as Lawrence Summers, later the administration’s top economist, reportedly (Hey Paul, don't you think a Nobel winner should do enough research to...use documented quotes...what tripe.)  said in a memo to the president-elect.
But economies that have experienced a severe financial crisis generally don’t heal quickly. From the Panic of 1893, to the Swedish crisis of 1992, to Japan’s lost decade, financial crises have consistently been followed by long periods of economic distress. And that has been true even when, as in the case of Sweden, the government moved quickly and decisively to fix the banking system.   So perhaps Paul, using your own logic, government does not help...you whack job!
What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe.  I am so tired of liberal double speak, it was the AMOUNT of the stimulus, the WASTE of the stimulus, the SPENDING OF MONEY WE DO NOT HAVE which caused the political catastrophe.  Without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.

Is there any hope for a better outcome? Maybe, just maybe, voters will have second thoughts about handing power back to the people who got us into this mess, Paul and Mr. Obama how exactly did conservatives get us into this mess?  and a weaker-than-expected Republican showing at the polls will give Mr. Obama a second chance to turn the economy around.