{"id":15638,"date":"2013-12-30T15:18:28","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T20:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=15638"},"modified":"2013-12-30T15:18:28","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T20:18:28","slug":"fiscal-fever-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2013\/12\/30\/fiscal-fever-breaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiscal Fever Breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Krugman&#8217;s latest column in <em>The New York Times<\/em> is <a title=\"Paul Krugman article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/12\/30\/opinion\/krugman-fiscal-fever-breaks.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Fiscal Fever Breaks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; in fact, we\u2019d probably be close to full employment now but for the unprecedented fiscal austerity of the past three years.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\nStill, does any of this matter? You could argue that it doesn\u2019t \u2014 that fiscal scolds may have lost control of the conversation, but that we\u2019re still doing terrible things like cutting off benefits to the long-term unemployed. But while policy remains terrible, we\u2019re finally starting to talk about real issues like inequality, not a fake fiscal crisis. And that has to be a move in the right direction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If we truly are shifting the terms of the debate, now is the time to keep up the pressure.\u00a0 Let us not rest on our laurels.\u00a0 We need to start implementing the next stage while we think several stages ahead.<\/p>\n<p>If he hadn&#8217;t been so specific, I might have added the following to my list of favorite quotes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As the old saying goes, they used Reinhart-Rogoff the way a drunk uses a lamppost \u2014 for support, not illumination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to my extensive research on Google, the &#8220;original quote&#8221; is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>or<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts \u2014 for support rather than illumination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The first version is attributed to Vin Scully by <a title=\"Brainy Quote attribution\" href=\"http:\/\/www.brainyquote.com\/quotes\/quotes\/v\/vinscully205138.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>brainyquote.com<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The second version is connected to Andrew Lang (March 31 1844 \u2013 July 20 1912), but <a title=\"Wikiquote attribution\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Andrew_Lang\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>wikiquote.com<\/strong><\/a> really claims the original author has not been identified<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Krugman&#8217;s latest column in The New York Times is Fiscal Fever Breaks. &#8230; in fact, we\u2019d probably be close to full employment now but for the unprecedented fiscal austerity of the past three years. . . . Still, does any of this matter? You could argue that it doesn\u2019t \u2014 that fiscal scolds may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15639,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions\/15639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}