In the article The CIA/Likud Sinking of Jimmy Carter, author Robert Parry describes his theory of how the Republicans and their allies in the CIA conspired to prevent the Iranian hostages from being freed during the Carter administration.

It seemed fairly likely at the time that the Reagan campaign had conspired to defeat Carter’s negotiations with the Iranians for the release of the hostages.  This article just supplies all the details to make that supposition even more plausible.

If I had a “believe it, or not” category on this blog, I would put this story into it.

In the column The Third Depression in the New York Times, Paul Krugman again explains why government austerity measures make no sense at this time.

Since the pressures are so heavy from the people who understand little about macro economics, it is refreshing to see some reinforcement from someone who does thoroughly understand it.

There are lots of examples in the world about what happens after some policy or another is followed.  We have the recent examples of Greece and Spain who ran huge deficits.  We have the world of the 1930s who refused to run deficits.

It takes someone who understands the reasons for the consequences and who understands the actions more deeply than the headlines to know which examples apply to us at the current time. In this case, I think Paul Krugman is one of those people who have the requisite understanding.

People with little economic training do not seem to have the necessary tools to understand the current situation and the consequences of various policies.  If you don’t have the tools to analyze and understand, then your choice of policies is little better than throwing darts at the answers to a multiple-choice question.

Throwing darts has some probability of success, but I think the odds are in favor of people who know something.  There are no deeper assurances than that in the real world.