VFW :
[There is a paradox to the bell curve reference, or counter-intuitive meeting. How ironic the Laffer curve is a Bell curve, but their meeting results in The L-Curve.]
[It may be dangerous(i.e. fuzzy math and English) to insert irony or mixed metaphors/charts, but I will now switch streams.]
There seems to be an overly conservative perspective on government spending in the Krugman/Wells article with the use of the word temporary:
In 2008 we suddenly found ourselves living in a Keynesian world — that is, a world that very much had the features John Maynard Keynes focused on in his 1936 magnum opus, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.” By that we mean that we found ourselves in a world in which lack of sufficient demand had become the key economic problem, and in which narrow technocratic solutions, like cuts in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate target, were not adequate to that situation. To deal effectively with the crisis, we needed more activist government policies, in the form both of temporary spending to support employment and efforts to reduce the overhang of mortgage debt.
It ignores the long-term infrastructure deficit otherwise know as investment in our infrastructure. Given the skewed GOP perspective on cutting spending over recovering taxes and investing in the country, it is no wonder growth, which is not the answer*** alone anyway, is not faring well.
Note fuzzy, not to mention capitalized Bell and un-capitalized bell curve.(ouch)
***(Crtl F) "growth"
