Paul Krugman, the Keynesian drum-beating economist, was invited by CNN on Sunday to promote the Obama strategy of pumping additional billions into the economy. One of his very telling responses to Fareed Zakaria’s question on significantly more spending and borrowing was “what about now?â€Â
This very self serving response from Krugman was an advocacy of profligate spending very much in keeping with a too popular expectation of immediate gratification. Pushing the debt onto future generations, and “get-me-what-I-want-now,†is the egocentric inclination that delivered the current state of financial devastation. “What about now?†came from the mind of an economist who exudes a distinct arrogance much too indistinguishable from that personified in Obama.
The defiant arrogance, evident in both of these currently influential individuals, is a disconcerting heap of hubris that America’s present and future conscience must reject out of hand. Another prognosticating ego on the talking-head circuit is Nouriel Roubini, the self-proclaimed forecaster of doom, who improves his personal bank account by knocking capitalism and calling for more government intervention. Current and future taxpayers cannot afford to accommodate such egocentric thinking, from egocentric minds. When overwhelming egos audaciously preach anything, we should become very suspicious of the direction they profess to lead.
I am making a statement less on economic theory, than I am making an observation on the message our intuitive natures are very likely receiving, many of us at least – the Obama and Krugman recipe for a utopian Now is false. It is false for the Now, and it is false for the Future. We should be apprehensive and skeptical of all egocentric thinking. We should very much distrust assertions, articulate or otherwise, that emanate from well-understood egotism.
Weary taxpayers should demand leadership that does not ignore the burdens of tax increases, massive stimulus spending, and out-of-control deficit spending. They should also demand of the Krugmans of the world, why they have no solutions to the impossible debt load that will be confronting America in 10 to 12 years. Taxpayers are standing on the sidelines of a progressive parade sweeping the country with an ideology that is expanding government to redistribute wealth rather than enacting measures to stimulate its creation.
James Raider writes The Pacific Gate Post
