Today, economist Paul Krugman weighs in on the debate. Krugman can see no good excuses for the way the media has covered the Obama attempt to mitigate the crisis:
But in a way, the implicit censorship on the stimulus debate is even stranger. During the initial discussion of the stimulus, the debate was framed almost entirely as a debate between Obama and those who said the stimulus was too big; the voices of those saying it was too small were largely frozen out. And they still are — if it weren’t for my position on the Times op-ed page, there would be hardly any major outlet for Keynesian concerns.
And here’s the thing: in this case, there isn’t any hidden evidence — you can’t argue that the CIA knows something the rest of us don’t. And the voices calling for stronger stimulus are, may I say, sorta kinda respectable — several Nobelists in the bunch, plus a large fraction of the prominent economists who predicted the housing crash before it happened.
But somehow, the pro-stimulus people are unpersons. Who makes these decisions?
Enough people do not understand the stimulas package or for that matter what it is and what it does. More people should stand togethet to get the real information.
ReplyDeleteMost people understand that the purpose of stimulus spending was to increase the deficit. After all, that's about all the media tells them about it.
ReplyDeleteOf course, "increasing the deficit" is also the purpose of the Obama health plan.
http://jotman.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-needs-reform-even-more-than-health.html