The problem with arguing about the deficit/crisis is that Krugman's analysis is, to most folk, counter-intuitive, and requires some knowledge of economics. The Tories and the coalition seized on the simplest reductive narrative, and pushed it through the media for obvious political reasons.
What was that old saying about a lie travelling around the world while the truth was still lacing its boots?
According to many sources, the election was won in England, by the English, who would rather have not been governed by a tail-wagging-the-dog SNP/Labour coalition. The Scottish independence debate's major blowback has been amusingly ironic.
For one it is predicated on the assumption that worker population / productivity will grow faster than public debt which seems dubious at best considering the declining birthrates and increasingly aged population of many developed countries.
Likewise it discounts the issue of predictability that the OP brought up. People don't worry about debts that they know they can pay. It's the debts you can't pay that cause trouble, and uncertainty about the future is naturally going to make people more leery of taking on additional burdens.
Two things...immigration deals with some of the problems you mention with an ageing population (though adding a few others) and a small amount of inflation helps manage the debt.
It can but both of are temporary solutions at best.
Even with inflation you still need each worker's effective "share" of the debt to go down or you'll end up right back where you started. Likewise immigration requires positions for those immigrants to fill and requires those immigrants to assimilate, otherwise you're just dumping money into functionally independent enclaves for little or no return.
Also the current bout of Euroscepticism isn't quite so much a "ground up" phenomenon as much as a small rump of nationalists given endless media coverage and thereafter blooming. Prior to the media coverage of UKIP, they were polling less than the Green Party. The Greens have rightly complained about the exposure that UKIP have gotten in comparison to them. Isn't it wonderful how some things just seem to attract the attention the Fourth Estate, and other things are just left to wither on the vine? The "fertiliser" of the media has contributed greatly to UKIP's rise.
This is not to deny that there is a great deal of misunderstanding and mistrust over Europe. I have seen many folk on many media pages attribute ECHR's actions to the EU. Some folk don't care enough to disambiguate; it all being "Europe" or "Brussels".
Again, one returns to the complexity of the respective narratives. "Four legs good" still works well, because it is simple.
And that all bodes pretty bad for democracy - because it tends to be manipulated into becoming a dictatorship of the dumber masses, and ideologically well-versed political charlatans are always prepared to exploit that to their advantage.
Comments 9
Reply
What was that old saying about a lie travelling around the world while the truth was still lacing its boots?
According to many sources, the election was won in England, by the English, who would rather have not been governed by a tail-wagging-the-dog SNP/Labour coalition. The Scottish independence debate's major blowback has been amusingly ironic.
Reply
For one it is predicated on the assumption that worker population / productivity will grow faster than public debt which seems dubious at best considering the declining birthrates and increasingly aged population of many developed countries.
Likewise it discounts the issue of predictability that the OP brought up. People don't worry about debts that they know they can pay. It's the debts you can't pay that cause trouble, and uncertainty about the future is naturally going to make people more leery of taking on additional burdens.
Reply
Reply
Even with inflation you still need each worker's effective "share" of the debt to go down or you'll end up right back where you started. Likewise immigration requires positions for those immigrants to fill and requires those immigrants to assimilate, otherwise you're just dumping money into functionally independent enclaves for little or no return.
Reply
This is not to deny that there is a great deal of misunderstanding and mistrust over Europe.
I have seen many folk on many media pages attribute ECHR's actions to the EU. Some folk don't care enough to disambiguate; it all being "Europe" or "Brussels".
Again, one returns to the complexity of the respective narratives. "Four legs good" still works well, because it is simple.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment