Can we stop with the Paul Krugman posts already?

[MFrohike]

123. You're sort of right

Confidence really is the key issue for economic growth. Without some kind of confidence that the future will be better than the present, people will be far less willing to spend money and that is destructive to an economy. Your concern is with risk-taking on the supply-side, but that concern is misplaced. Unless people have the money to spend to meet their needs and wants, the best entrepreneur in the world won't make a dime. Demand is the driver, supply is the horse.

The battle over confidence is a battle over who has the primary influence in the economy, government or private industry. The confidence arguments today are nothing but a rehash of the same arguments made in the early 1930s. The basic question is whether or not government can actually inspire confidence in the future through economic policy. American history from 1933 until the 1970s shows that the question is an unequivocal yes. This does not mean that every policy undertaken during that period was right. It means that government, the agent of the people at large, has an important role to play in the economy of our democracy.

I think I see your point on equality. I think you mean that the entrepreneur doesn't set out to level inequalities, he sets out to make money and maybe a name for himself. If that was your point, I'm pretty sure you're right. It's not his role to worry about that. That is the proper role of the federal government.

You may feel emotionally spent and have no energy or inspiration. I don't. I work 60 hours a week, I never sleep enough, and I barely have time to do anything I enjoy, but I haven't lost my capacity for hope. I don't mean hope as a slogan in a lukewarm political campaign, I mean real hope. I don't think our people have lost their capacity to dream big. I think we've been beaten down for decades with plenty of can't do bullshit. All we ever hear is that America can't do this anymore, can't do that anymore, but we always have more to shovel onto the plates of those with plenty. I'm tired of it. We all should be tired of it. America, and Americans, can do whatever the hell we want to do. Even with all the broken promises, outright lies, and idiocy, I hear people talk about what we can do and need to do in this country every day. I don't hear people accept the broken system and criminality of today as right, I hear them call it outrageous and say it needs to be right. Maybe I'm naive, but it sure sounds like people who've lost their patience with the bullshit artists in government who don't work for them and not people who've lost their ability, and need, to believe that we can do better.