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Mugged
by the Moralizers
by Paul Krugman
How many of you people want to pay
for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay
their bills?"
That’s the question CNBC’s Rick Santelli famously asked in 2009, in a
rant widely credited with giving birth to the Tea Party movement.
It’s a sentiment that resonates not just in America but in much of the
world, but the message is the same:
debt is evil, debtors must pay for their sins, and from now on we all
must live within our means.
And that kind of moralizing is the reason we’re mired in a seemingly
endless slump...
So what should we be doing? First, governments should be spending while
the private sector won't, so that debtors
can pay down their debts without perpetuating a global slump. Second,
governments should be promoting widespread
debt relief: reducing obligations to levels the debtors can handle is
the fastest way to eliminate that debt overhang.
But the moralizers will have none of it. They denounce deficit
spending, declaring that you can’t solve debt problems
with more debt. They denounce debt relief, calling it a reward for the
undeserving.
And if you point out that their
arguments don’t add up, they fly into a rage. Try to explain that when
debtors spend less,
the economy will be depressed unless somebody else spends more, and
they call you a socialist. Try to explain why mortgage
relief is better for America than foreclosing on homes that must be
sold at a huge loss, and they start ranting like Mr. Santelli.
2010 will be remembered as the year when facts and reason mean nothing.
If a Teabagger needed a doctor to operate on his child, he wouldn't
want an experienced surgeon who had
done this kind of operation 50 times, he's want somebody new, like
Sharron Angel or the Masturbatring Witch.
Because Obama failed to
come to work and failed to
lead,
our possibilities tonight are 1) losing and 2) losing BIG.
If Obama had been able to come to the realization that he won in 2008, things might've been
different.
Instead, like a little boy, he's going to the Bitch and the Boner
asking PERMISSION to act like a President.