Welcome friends!
Did I ever mention I’m a huge fan of Paul Krugman? I think he’s a great economist (well, OK, many people think that; he does have a Nobel Prize and all) and he’s a very entertaining writer as well. He did a great job analyzing some of the weaker elements of President Obama’s presidency thus far in a recent piece entitled The Focus Hocus-Pocus, which appeared in the November 4, 2010 edition of the NY Times. However, what I’d like to address this week is his suggestion in that article that government really needs to “engineer significant relief to homeowners.” He previously wrote a bit more on this issue in the significantly named Mugged by the Moralizers, which published in the NY Times on October 31, 2010. In the latter article he suggested that administration officials have been too timid in their mortgage modification programs to date because they are overly concerned that people might accuse them of helping the undeserving. Basically, Mr. Krugman’s position seems to be that we shouldn’t worry so much about that type of thing because we all have a lot to gain from reducing homeowners’ debt from a macroeconomic perspective: it would get people spending again and help the economy, we would have more jobs, etc.
As a liberal I find this argument both disconcerting and disappointing. It’s disconcerting because I partially agree... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
