Stuck in the Muddle

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: January 23, 2009 6:50:05 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Stuck in the Muddle

January 23, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Stuck in the Muddle
By PAUL KRUGMAN
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all 
>

Like anyone who pays attention to business and financial news, I am in  
a state of high economic anxiety. Like everyone of good will, I hoped  
that President Obama’s Inaugural Address would offer some reassurance,  
that it would suggest that the new administration has this thing  
covered.

But it was not to be. I ended Tuesday less confident about the  
direction of economic policy than I was in the morning.

Just to be clear, there wasn’t anything glaringly wrong with the  
address — although for those still hoping that Mr. Obama will lead the  
way to universal health care, it was disappointing that he spoke only  
of health care’s excessive cost, never once mentioning the plight of  
the uninsured and underinsured.

Also, one wishes that the speechwriters had come up with something  
more inspiring than a call for an “era of responsibility” — which, not  
to put too fine a point on it, was the same thing former President  
George W. Bush called for eight years ago.

But my real problem with the speech, on matters economic, was its  
conventionality. In response to an unprecedented economic crisis — or,  
more accurately, a crisis whose only real precedent is the Great  
Depression — Mr. Obama did what people in Washington do when they want  
to sound serious: he spoke, more or less in the abstract, of the need  
to make hard choices and stand up to special interests.

That’s not enough. In fact, it’s not even right.

Thus, in his speech Mr. Obama attributed the economic crisis in part  
to “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation  
for a new age” — but I have no idea what he meant. This is, first and  
foremost, a crisis brought on by a runaway financial industry. And if  
we failed to rein in that industry, it wasn’t because Americans  
“collectively” refused to make hard choices; the American public had  
no idea what was going on, and the people who did know what was going  
on mostly thought deregulation was a great idea.

Or consider this statement from Mr. Obama: “Our workers are no less  
productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less  
inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last  
week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished.  
But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and  
putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed.”

[snip]RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com