We Don’t Need No Education


The New York Times has Paul Krugman’s column, We Don’t Need No Education.

Conservatives would have you believe that our disappointing economic performance has somehow been caused by excessive government spending, which crowds out private job creation. But the reality is that private-sector job growth has more or less matched the recoveries from the last two recessions; the big difference this time is an unprecedented fall in public employment, which is now about 1.4 million jobs less than it would be if it had grown as fast as it did under President George W. Bush.

And, if we had those extra jobs, the unemployment rate would be much lower than it is — something like 7.3 percent instead of 8.2 percent. It sure looks as if cutting government when the economy is deeply depressed hurts rather than helps the American people.

And here is a paragraph singled out by me and dedicated to two cousins I was speaking to this weekend.

In fact, almost everyone following the situation now realizes that Germany’s austerity obsession has brought Europe to the edge of catastrophe — almost everyone, that is, except the Germans themselves and, it turns out, the Romney economic team.

My cousins still believe that the European problem lies with Spain.  When I told them that the actual problem is caused by Germany, not Spain, I have no doubt they dismissed that idea as coming from someone who had too much to drink at the wedding.

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