alexpgp | Lunacy...

In an op-ed in today's New York Times, Paul Krugman seems to have crossed the line into some other world. I mean, how else can you explain what has to be a candidate for the economic howler of the year.

To wit:

Although you’d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. (Emphasis mine.)

According to the Wikipedia article on the US federal budget, the 2010 budget was $3.5 trillion and the 2011 budget, which closes at the end of this month, is $3.8 trillion. I've seen other numbers that pretty much track the numbers in the article (and which are typically higher on both counts), but they uniformly show the 2011 number to be greater than the 2010 number.

I don't know how things work where Krugman hangs his hat, but out here in flyover country, you'd actually have to spend less than you did the previous year before you could talk about a "cut" in spending, and you'd have to spend a lot less to credibly call such cuts a "slash."

I mean, you'd expect Krugman's line of thinking to come out of the mouth of a sleazy, unprincipled salesperson ("We've slashed the price of this year's widget, so now's the time to buy!" when really, this year's widget carries a higher price tag), but even such a sorry creature must know that (a) nobody in their right mind, comparing price tags and spending their own money, would fall for such a load of crap, and (b) they'd probably end up charged with fraudulent and deceptive business practices.

Cheers...