Krugman: Spend Now, Save Later

[mrstickball]

richardhutnik said:

axt113 said:

Well first off, that's what you get when you let the GOP have too much control, bad economic policies, smoot and hawley were both repubs, and now you want repubs back in control, after what happened under Bush and the GOP congress, makes me wonder about the intelligence of most GOP supporters.

See, the thing is, the GOP saw a major shift in the late 20's, to a more protectionist viewpoint. Traditionally, the republicans fought against tariffs - much as they do today (one of the few things similar between todays GOP and the GOP of ~100 years ago).

Don't forget that FDR wanted to do some even more radical things in the late 30's, had he of not lost the significant controls over the house and senate.

Also, while Government action did play a role, you're ignoring all the private market reasons for the depression,  poor banking structure, over-leveraging, Animal spirits in the market causing people to overreact making the situation far worse.

I'm not saying the private sector was totally off the hook for the depression. However, I don't believe that they were what caused the depression. They caused a recession, and the government took it into a depression.

Outside of people being allowed to fail and being removed from the marketplace, and failure being a purging mechanism, I fail to see how individuals working in corporations acting any smarter than those in government.  Is there something magic by saying it not being done by government that intrinsically makes things better?  Look at the comic strip Dilbert, and then answer how that is a sign of genius being in the private sector.  Scott Adams of Dilbert gets his material from people in the private sector at this point.  My personal experience in the private sector was that I had a manager tell me that the higher ups in the corporation made him be the Dilbert manager from time to time.

There is a simple answer: Competition. The government typically monopolizes power in certain sectors of business, as well as hirings. Corporations are different, as they may, at any time, be forced to compete with other businesses, and the more efficient one usually wins.

Are there bad, lazy, stupid, questionable office workers? Of course. Dilbert proves it, and so do TV shows like The Office. However, compared to government, they are a shade or two better, because they may have to fight for survival in a way that governments typically do not. Look at the car industry for a great example. Toyota was a no-name car company in the 70's and 80's...Now look where they are.

By the way, I said the above, knowing that the government is fairly horrible at doing anything.

Fairly Horrible < Somewhat Horrible