Backwards Priorities

This point can not be repeated often enough right now. I direct you to the excellent Ryan Avent:

I trust the analyses showing that a long-term fiscal crisis looms, and I note that America's gross debt-to-gdp ratio is uncomfortably high. It's not obviously too high to sustain, however. It's far from obvious that swingeing cuts are necessary to right the fiscal ship—as opposed to, say, moderate increases in revenues combined with a meaningful slowing of the projected rate of growth of health spending. And markets, which should be heeded, could not be shouting any more forcefully that whatever cuts need to be made certainly don't need to be made now.



...I see Americans as distressed by a dismal economy, frustrated at years of stagnant pay amid rising costs, and outraged by a system of government institutionally incapable of addressing basic concerns. Europe hasn't proceeded with dramatic austerity because austerity is popular in Europe. Oh no. Europe has proceeded with austerity because markets posed a real threat, because European parliamentary systems lack the anti-majoritarian bottlenecks that constrain America's government, and because European electorates accepted that policies they dislike were necessary to avoid potential outcomes they dislike even more.



Lampooning American voters as idiots living fat off the government teat obscures the reality of the present situation. Fiscal issues are not and should not be the principal worry in an America with high unemployment and rock-bottom sovereign-debt costs.

This is going to be my new mantra.



Fiscal issues are not and should not be the principal worry in an America with high unemployment and rock-bottom sovereign-debt costs.



Fiscal issues are not and should not be the principal worry in an America with high unemployment and rock-bottom sovereign-debt costs.



(By the way, life has almost finished with its current bout of overwhelming interference with my blogging. More regular posting to resume in the next few days.)