Roots of Wrongness

[phantom power]

Smith bends over backwards to try to find some truth in the various arguments bubbling up from the right — they’ve been 50 percent right on the budget? Really? — but still finds an extraordinary record of getting everything wrong. Why?

Well, Kalecki had the answer. We are in a Keynesian crisis that calls for Keynesian policies; but conservatives find both the diagnosis and the cure anathema, for political reasons. Conceding that the government can and should create jobs would devalue the importance of being nice to businessmen, and suggest that in general the government can do good things. So the obvious diagnosis and response are unacceptable.

And hence the seemingly endless series of bad new ideas. These ideas don’t add up to a coherent counter-theory of the crisis; they’re more a matter of throwing stuff at Keynes, hoping that something will stick.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/roots-of-wrongness/

[on point]

1. Basically can't admit the supply-side economic argument is nonsense. Trickle down is a fraud

(except for small corner case where liquidity is tight as it was during Raygun term when interest ratrs were 15%. Then tax cuts could be helpful. But beyond this corner case, it is completey wrong)