The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Duncan Black to Brad Delong to you

    By Flavius on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 10:00am |

    Brad Delong tries to answer Black's question of why Obama has been maundering on about the long run deficit when that is not only not the problem but when pretending it is the problem makes it less likely that we'll fix the problem.

     

    Delong's best effort was to try and guess at what team Obama thought and it looked like this.

    1. It is highly likely that when the recovery comes it will be a "V"--that bounce-back will be swift, and that by late 2010 the big threat on the horizon
    2. The major risk of a deeper, prolonged recession comes from a "capital strike" or from a Wall Street panic--that is what the reaction to the collapse of Lehman taught us--therefore we have to keep the banks and the bankers sweet or we face a real problem: not just a recession but a Lesser Depression.

     (those were actually Brad's (2) and (3) but the editing process has renumbered them) But the commentors have other ideas. e.g.:

    Negotiating with hostage takers who are really willing to kill the hostages is hard. The shift to focusing on deficits is two things. One is doing what it takes to get the Republicans to approve the continuing resolution and raise the debt limit. Here the alternative was disaster, not a second stimulus. I think it is clear why Obama was talking about the deficit for months in 2011. He had to.

    or

    The problem is that the cossacks (Obama, Boehner, ...) work for the czar, and the czar is voters.

    Nearly all people who actually vote (and all significant campaign donors) are actually employed and own property and care far more about stopping the slide in the prices of their properties than about the exploitative parasites who don't want to work (because every propertied rentier knows that there is no such thing as involuntary unemployment, just stupid and lazy parasites).

    Anyway, Follow the link and you'll find at least one commenter who agrees with you and one  who thinks you're out of your mind.

    http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/why-has-obama-been-talking-about-the-the-long-run-deficit-for-the-past-two-years.html

    Comments

    By surrendering to the GOPer's on the debt ceiling, Obama gave them a mandate where none was. He empowered their position by caving rather than going at them head-to-head. But he says that's not his style so we have to wait-and-see what is his style. So I don't see a point in discussing the obvious ... we have no clue what Obama will do under any circumstance.


    by Beetlejuice on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 11:24am

    That is a problem in a democracy.


    by Flavius on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 12:07pm

    thank you, flav.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 6:24pm

    You're welcome. Seemed to me to expand the worthwhile discussion that's been taking place here . Perhaps with a  little less of the hurt feelings on display here. Understandably.


    by Flavius on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:35pm