I’m not sure of the precise moment Peter Beinart became a shill for Paul Krugman. Then again, I can’t remember a time he wasn’t. Read this bit from his Daily Beast column today, in which he manages to stroke his chin and wring his hands and give Krugman the old reach around all at once:
Last night’s biggest loser was not the Democratic Party. Democrats will rebound. In fact, the GOP’s victories probably improve Barack Obama’s chances of reelection since he can now position himself as a check on Republican radicalism, as Bill Clinton did in 1996. The real loser is Keynesianism: The idea that when businesses and individuals stop spending, government must. That idea will not rebound; it’s over for this period in economic history. First Britain, and now the United States, are responding to the worst economic contraction in 75 years by contracting government, despite the fact that the world’s best economists are screaming that it’s exactly the wrong thing to do. As Virginia Thomas might say, “Have a good day!”
Evil Rethuglican Teabaggers are ignoring the advice of “the world’s best economists” because they want to keep the economy in the tank so that giant corporations can make evil profits selling grandma’s bones to the Chinese! Or something.
But Beinart ignores two tiny things.
1. “The world’s best economists” don’t all agree on stimulus. Unless, of course, we change that to The World’s Best Economists™, where the TM belongs to Paul Krugman.
2. Germany. Anyone remember Germany? No stimulus, and Germany is a jobs-creation machine, with the lowest unemployment rate they’ve enjoyed in 18 years.
And let’s throw in a third item, just in case Beinart conveniently forgot this one — where is the money going to come from? The UK is cutting because they’re out of money. So are we. We’re tapped out. Broke. Stony. Busted. The credit card is maxed.
And don’t you forget that, as we prepare to enter a very tough fight against entrenched DC interests. Washington insiders will continue to suck us dry, if we let them. And Beinart will continue cheer them on, with that smug, casual viciousness so common to beltway Journ-O-Lists.
“the world’s best economists”?? Friedrich Hayek feels this way? Milton Freidman feels this way? Wow! Who knew?
No. He. Can’t. (He doesn’t know how.)
Instead he’s convinced himself (public mea culpa pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding) that since Reid still holds the Senate and the GOP House majority is less than the Dems’ was, yesterday’s results aren’t that big of a deal.
If Boehner doesn’t work atv twisting Obama in knots, Obama will do it for him.
Agreed. Teh Won is so certain he’s correct that he’ll probably just speak more slowly and use smaller words, now the Rethuglicans are in charge.
I’ve been amazed lately by the number of people who think the economy is faith based, that money is worth something just because we believe in it. Even a lot of young conservatives I meet have no clear idea why money is valuable. Their universities just can’t seem to fit it in between diversity seminars.
Money is not valuable because we all believe in it. It is valuable because we work for it. This is obvious to people with mathematical training, because they know the first thing to do when you’re trying to understand a function is check what happens at the endpoints. And it is obvious that if nobody produced any bread, you couldn’t buy bread no matter how much people believed in your money.
Cash represents work. Fiat cash represents nothing but hope. And if the Republicans are looking for a theme in 2012, they could do worse than this: Work is better than hope.