Friday, October 14, 2011

The Rabbit Hole

Interesting column by Paul Krugman in today's Times. He is concerned about the Republican party and the collection of Yahoos running for the party's nomination. They are all, every last one, mad as hatters who have jumped down the rabbit hole when it comes to economic policy, and it "terrifies" him. Frankly, I agree with him completely. Here's a snippet of what he says:
And since economic policy has to deal with the world we live in, not the fantasy world of the G.O.P.’s imagination, the prospect that one of these people may well be our next president is, frankly, terrifying.
In the real world, recent events were a devastating refutation of the free-market orthodoxy that has ruled American politics these past three decades. Above all, the long crusade against financial regulation, the successful effort to unravel the prudential rules established after the Great Depression on the grounds that they were unnecessary, ended up demonstrating — at immense cost to the nation — that those rules were necessary, after all.
But down the rabbit hole, none of that happened.
Precisely. I've been wondering for months on end what strange demons possess these guys that cause them to simply deny reality. Can they seriously believe that excessive government regulations and bad home loans to people who were not worthy of them were what brought the US and world economies to the brink of collapse? If this is truly what's in their minds, well I'd like a hookah bowl of whatever it is they're smoking.

1 comment:

Norma said...

Krugman. Well, there's not much to say.