Krugman is saying "enough is enough!"

He's had it with people who don't understand the economy, proclaiming what we should do.

Check out the opinion page of any major newspaper, or listen to any news-discussion program, and you’re likely to encounter some self-proclaimed centrist declaring that there are no short-run fixes for our economic difficulties, that the responsible thing is to focus on long-run solutions and, in particular, on “entitlement reform” — that is, cuts in Social Security and Medicare. And when you do encounter such a person, you should be aware that people like that are a major reason we’re in so much trouble.

Using the analogy of someone bleeding from an open wound, Krugman argues that right now "the economy desperately needs a short-term fix," binding the wound, and stopping the bleeding, not a lecture on healthy living, or long-term deficit management.

Just as an aside, you should be noting the Social Security Trust Fund is solvent until 2037. As many of us here have been pointing out all year.

Krugman observes that with this rate of unemployment, our economy is losing over $1 trillion per year in of wasted potential. In other words, at this rate, we could lose $10 trillion dollars while arguing about how to save $2 trillion in budget deficits. Not too smart.

But let's let historian attribute blame. What should we do now?

What would a real response to our problems involve? First of all, it would involve more, not less, government spending for the time being — with mass unemployment and incredibly low borrowing costs, we should be rebuilding our schools, our roads, our water systems and more. It would involve aggressive moves to reduce household debt via mortgage forgiveness and refinancing. And it would involve an all-out effort by the Federal Reserve to get the economy moving, with the deliberate goal of generating higher inflation to help alleviate debt problems. The usual suspects will, of course, denounce such ideas as irresponsible. But you know what’s really irresponsible? Hijacking the debate over a crisis to push for the same things you were advocating before the crisis, and letting the economy continue to bleed.

What the Heck is this Infrastructure Investment Anyway?

Some folks seem to think "infrastructure investment" is just filling potholes, and make-work projects, when in reality, our infrastructure is the foundation for almost everything our economy depends on, such as roads, bridges, electrical grids, water pipes, sewage pipes, telecommunications, etc.

For example, in our solar flare discussions over the last week, I've been researching the question of how long the US electrical grids could be knocked out from a severe geomagnetic solar storm, caused by a direct hit of a Class 9 solar flare, with a coronal mass ejection.

In the article I quoted, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association saying that up to 135 million Americans could be knocked "off-grid for up to 1 to 10 years. While all our readers agreed this could happen for 3 months, which is enough to jeopardize the cooling ponds and reactor cores, of our nations 104 nuclear power plants, many couldn't believe 1 to 10 years could be plausible.

It turns out this is what a National Academy of Science study suggested, in part, because of our aging infrastructure. The average age of our largest transformers is over 30 years, with a total expected life of 40. It would be easy to replace them now, or even build standby replacements, which could be reinstalled in months, but if we wait for a period of social chaos, food riots, and a break-down of society, here and around the world, we will sadly discover that we no longer have the domestic capacity to manufacture replacements, and the countries that do will tend to their needs first.

Very large, custom transformers, of the size we are talking about here, can take over a year to build, even in good times, but if over 300 are knocked out in the US from a gigantic EMP, electro-magnetic pulse, with competition for very limited replacement parts, and a disrupted social system and manufacturing system, one gets into scenarios where many parts of the country, and up to 135 million people could be "off-grid" for up to a decade, if they survive the social chaos, and foot riots of the first 3 months to a year.

Meanwhile, decentralized solar photovoltaic panels, are giving people the abilty to economically go off-grid. This is also infrastructure investment and creates jobs, right here in America.

Just saying, this is the type of thing we mean when we say "infrastructure" investment now, could not only be a big jobs booster, but address real needs we should be addressing anyway -- and, that we will have to address anyway, perhaps, during much less propitious times.

The Need to Educate Politicians, Parties, and Pundits.



We need to educate our politicians, political parties, and pundits, so they understand this and can start engaging in this ideological, and economic philosophy battle at the right level.

In this regard, I recommend you read, and think about Krugman’s article in today's NYT's.

Some of you may wince, when he includes President Obama in the cross-fire, however, I believe his intent is to try to get our attention focused back on the most urgent needs of our economy and country. A focus, voters will intuitively resonate on, and quickly realize who is talking the truth, and who is blowing smoke out their asses.

We could trounce the GOP on this issue, if we get our understanding up to speed. And President Obama has the oratorical skills and intellect to pull it off. My only advice is that he watch Samual Jackson's "enought is enough" speech, from Snakes on a Plane, first to put him in the right mood.

The sooner we wake up from this delusional fog of right-wing nuttery and ass-smoke, the sooner we can get this country moving in the right direction.

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Even though, it might seem repetitious, I'd like to underline a couple of key points that we need to keep repeating until we get through to the politicians, and American voteres.

1. The economy is dead in the water, is not getting better, but worse, and we need every extra push we can give it.

2. "It's the jobs stupid!" We need a Keynesian style fiscal stimulus creating jobs. Dylan Ratigan is picking up the theme many of us have been pushing here, a focus on clean renewable energy jobs, with made in America solar panels, wind power, geothermal, tidal-marine, efficiency investment, and efficiency. I created Kosowatt to advance these themes, and I ask all of your here to help me emphasize these synergies.

Clean American energy. such as solar rooftop panels, not only creates installation jobs for Americans than can be outsourced, such clean energy jobs, reduce oil imports and trade deficits, keeping more of our money in America, and gives us an opportunity to stimulate the solar supply chain and infrastructure keeping more of it in the USA.

3. MSNBC and Senator John Kerry are pushing the "infrastructure bank." Our own Roger Fox is asking for better explanation and more details, which I second. Kerry suggests a relatively small investment could create millions of jobs.

4. We need 29 million new jobs. How do we fire these folks up to demand jobs with as much "rage" as the TeaParty fired up the misplaced focus on deficit.

5. We need to highlight Reich's blaming this economic crisis and double dip recession on Bush, and the Republicans, who have now capped Federal spending after we have lost 500,000 jobs.

It looks like we going to vote in the 2012 election with 8.5% unemployment, or worse. Normally, this would be a "throw the bums out" election. Reich, is giving ammunition to fight back with a blame the Republicans theme.

6. This is part of a class struggle. Wealth has become overly concentrated in the top 2%. We need to get these folks paying their fair share of taxes, and we need to make sure the reduction of the wealth estates taxes don't get re-extended again in 2012.

7. We need to extend unemployment compensation. It's compassion and goes right back into local economies.

8. We should consider spreading the meme that the Teabaggers seem intent on harming our economy to enhance their 2012 elections prospects. This is a serious charge but Bob Shrum, who is pretty smart is pushing it.

Lordcropper says, Krugman tells us what to do, but not how to do it. How do we get a bill through Congress?

What I hear Krugman, Reich, and many others saying is that we've got to get our Democratic leaders behind this winning argument, with some passion, and stop repeating GOP memes.

Let them watch this "Enough is Enough" video segment from Samual Jackson, in Snakes On A Plane to set the mood. Imagine Obama replacing, "snakes" with "Republicans," or "debt-ceiling talks" and "plane" with "Washington" or "economy."