Krugman: Obama and the conventional wisdom (set your phasers on unrec')

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Arguing for steps to reduce/constrain the deficit today is on roughly the same level as arguing to invade Iraq in 2003. It is that stupid and that potentially destructive. Obama is not an idiot (or closet-teabagger) so I give him the B of the D and assume he's always acting purely politically when he trots out the periodic deficit talk but that is not an acceptable sort of politics. Seeking voter favor by reinforcing sentiments or proposing measures that would do great harm to the world is never acceptable because even if you are just jerkin' the electorate, having a respected figure talking favorably about this stuff makes it seem legitimate.

Obama and the conventional wisdom
by Paul Krugman November 3, 2009, 9:06 am

Andrew Leonard asks when I’m going to “blow my top” over Obama’s statement that now is the time to “get serious” about reducing debt. Um, never?

Look, it has been obvious since the primary, if you were paying attention, that Obama — who has many excellent qualities — has an unfortunate tendency to echo “centrist” conventional wisdom, even when that CW is demonstrably wrong. Remember when he bought into the line that Social Security is in crisis, stepping on one of the biggest progressive victories in decades?

And right now, deficit-phobia has quickly congealed into the latest CW. You can see it in editorials (not from the Times, I’m happy to say, but almost everywhere else), in what the talking heads say, even in supposedly objective news reporting. Not a day goes by without my reading some assertion that “markets are anxious/jittery/worried about the deficit” — an assertion based on no evidence whatsoever. (Long-term interest rates on US debt are near historic lows; CDS spreads show no concern about default.)

And Obama, being who he is, apparently feels compelled to give at least rhetorical obeisance to the CW. We can only hope that his economists, who know better, can convince him not to act on it.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/obama-and-the-conventional-wisdom/