{"id":7555,"date":"2011-09-10T08:28:49","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T13:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=7555"},"modified":"2011-09-10T08:33:05","modified_gmt":"2011-09-10T13:33:05","slug":"setting-their-hair-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/09\/10\/setting-their-hair-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting Their Hair on Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the column Setting Their Hair on Fire<\/strong><\/a>, Paul Krugman weighs in on the Obama jobs plan.<\/p>\n

First things first: I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It\u2019s not nearly as bold as the plan I\u2019d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Still, the plan would be a lot better than nothing, and some of its measures, which are specifically aimed at providing incentives for hiring, might produce relatively a large employment bang for the buck. As I said, it\u2019s much bolder and better than I expected. President Obama\u2019s hair may not be on fire, but it\u2019s definitely smoking; clearly and gratifyingly, he does grasp how desperate the jobs situation is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later, in the article he comments on Mitt Romney’s alternative.<\/p>\n

Yes, Mr. Romney has issued a glossy, well-produced \u201cjobs plan,\u201d but it might best be described as 59 bullet points with nothing there \u2014 and certainly nothing to justify his assertion, bordering on megalomania, that he would create no fewer than 11 million jobs in four years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Romney’s plan may border on megalomania, but it is right over the edge into disingenuous.\u00a0 If he is half the business person he claims to be, if it were his own money, Romney would not be hiring people and investing in new plant and equipment as a result of his own plan.\u00a0 Until there are more customers than can be satisfied by opening up already closed plants and using already idle equipment, an entrepreneur would just be wasting money to make that sort of investment.\u00a0 Given Romney’s track record in business, one can be fairly assured that he is entirely aware of this even when he makes his nonsensical proposals and uses ridiculous numbers such as 11 million jobs.\u00a0 Who will be the first press person to call Romney to task on this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the column Setting Their Hair on Fire, Paul Krugman weighs in on the Obama jobs plan. First things first: I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It\u2019s not nearly as bold as the plan I\u2019d want in an ideal world. But if […]<\/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-7555","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\/7555","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=7555"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7560,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7555\/revisions\/7560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}