re: #89 Martinsmithy

Classic Keynesian economics states that governments should run surpluses during good economic times, and deficits during bad economic times. The surpluses should be used to pay off the deficits. While a modest national debt as percentage of GDP is actually good, the current, rising level is considered by economic orthodoxy to be too high. That’s because the U.S. government has run deficits even when the economy was booming (and no, the later Clinton years were only years of surplus if social security is excluded from the calculation).

In other words, Krugman’s advice, while sound in a classical Keynesian environment, is unsound when given at a time of such high national debt levels in the United States.

I can’t tell if you’re being illogical on purpose.

It’s true that we should lower spending in the boom times. However, the fact that we haven’t done that doesn’t mean we should goddamn compound the error, like morons, by not spending heavily in a recession.

You are saying “We’ve made one mistake, so let’s make another one”.

Idiotic.