The wrong answers

2010-12-08-Friedman-Still-Digging

Still Digging
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times, 2010-12-08

[Friedman’s answers here, such as more education for Americans,
are not wrong,
just inadequate to accomplish what he suggests they would.
See the books by Prestowitz and Fingleton for more complete answers
(which include Friedman’s education, but go considerably beyond it
to grapple with the real world
of the reasons for the trade imbalance with Asia,
topics which Friedman seems unwilling or unable to address).]

2011

2011-08-09-NYT-Ed-Past-Time-for-a-New-Agenda

Past Time for a New Agenda
The moment calls for a president more interested in job growth
than curbing debt.
New York Times Editorial, 2011-08-09

...

The credit decision put a price tag on the agenda of dysfunction
that Republicans brought to Washington,
in which unnecessary crises are created
to achieve their goals of shrinking government and bringing down Mr. Obama.
When one of the two political parties announces
its willingness to let the nation default,
S.& P. essentially said,
those who lend it money can no longer trust it to act rationally.
Whatever flaws may exist in S.& P.’s arithmetic,
that scolding is one that lawmakers richly deserve.

[Note how the NYT puts the blame exclusively on the Republicans.
What bigots they are!
The fact, which I am sure they know, is that
the Democrats have refused to permit cuts in their sacred entitlement programs.
For an example of this, see
Nancy Pelosi’s response to
the recommendation from the Bowles-Simpson commission.
As to the S&P message to Congress,
they have said loud and clear (to rational people, anyhow)
that the principal issue is not the failure to raise the debt limit,
but far more the failure to make a significant reduction in the rate of debt growth.
There is, to the date they made their downgrade,
no indication whatsoever that the U.S. political system
is capable of doing other than asking lenders to lend it more and more,
indefinitely into the future,
without any evidence of the willingness to end their borrowing.
Will lenders keep lending more and more to the U.S. indefinitely?
There is no reason to believe they will.
No nation or state in history has had its debt expand forever,
without an implosion of some sort or another.
S&P is merely pointing this out.]

2011-08-10-NYT-Ed-Half-Measures-From-the-Fed

Half-Measures From the Fed
New York Times Editorial, 2011-08-10

...

[I]t’s doubtful that the Fed’s move will be enough
to increase employment and growth.

...

[Indeed so.
But it is a thought of the greatest folly and irresponsibility
to blame the Fed for the employment problems in this country.
The NYT editorial board should be responsible enough
to address the real causes of the employment problem:
precisely the policies that they have been advocating for the last forty years.]