Krug Man's Burden

One service that David Brooks columns do perform punctually and in full measure is the provision of absurd Centrist hacky-sacks for his betters to kick around.  Honestly, If Our. Mr. Brooks would just stick to subjects about which he can safely maunder on for 800 words without comprehensively embarrassing himself -- valuable life lessons he has learned while cheering his kid's softball team, or flying coach, or how the smell of a freshly opened jar of Jif peanut butter reminds him of his first broken heart -- no one would notice or care.

But I suppose the New York Times is not going to pay him Cleveland Park mansion money to recycle old Bob Greene motifs, and reheating "Cathy" cartoon leftovers about chocolate and cats won't get you invited on "Meet the Press". And so, time and again, Mr. Brooks wades into politics (about which he knows not) and economics (about which he knows even less) guided entirely by the sickly light of his own, glaring ideological biases.

And, time and again, Mr. Brooks makes a damn fool of himself by getting these subjects wrong.

Always wrong. And always wrong in the same, embarrassingly predictable, Centrist way.

Most recently, Mr. Brooks spectacularly sharted the proverbial bed in front of, what? several ten of millions of readers around the world? by inventing an entirely fake, dichotomous argument that pits the imaginary unreasonable left-leaning "cyclicalists" and the teddibly, teddibly reasonable "structuralists" is whose vanguard Mr. Brooks is firmly ensconced.

Even based on Mr. Brooks' own, baseline level of journalist dereliction, this one is special: ginned up out of pure bibble-gas and basted together out of little snips left over from the final fitting of the Emperor's New Clothes, it would have been shitcanned by any decent editor of any decent college newspaper.

I took my traditional pinata swing at Mr. Brooks' dirigible-sized turd of a column using Mr. Brooks' own diametrically-opposed words from 2003 to punch big, wide, holes through his happy horseshit.

Brad DeLong flung charts at him like so many shurikens.

Winston Zeddemore Charlie Pierce -- the newest Ghostbuster --


took target practice using his own, choice artillery.


And now -- constrained though he is by the New York Times' own, weird, Marquis de Queensbury rules regarding calling a colleague a lying asshat by name -- Dr. Krugman applies the coup de grace:

So now we’re in another depression, not as bad as the last one, but bad enough. And, once again, authoritative-sounding figures insist that our problems are “structural,” that they can’t be fixed quickly. We must focus on the long run, such people say, believing that they are being responsible. But the reality is that they’re being deeply irresponsible. 

...

So what’s with the obsessive push to declare our problems “structural”? And, yes, I mean obsessive. Economists have been debating this issue for several years, and the structuralistas won’t take no for an answer, no matter how much contrary evidence is presented.

The answer, I’d suggest, lies in the way claims that our problems are deep and structural offer an excuse for not acting, for doing nothing to alleviate the plight of the unemployed.

Of course, structuralistas say they are not making excuses. They say that their real point is that we should focus not on quick fixes but on the long run — although it’s usually far from clear what, exactly, the long-run policy is supposed to be, other than the fact that it involves inflicting pain on workers and the poor. 

...

I would only add that inventing reasons not to do anything about current unemployment isn’t just cruel and wasteful, it’s bad long-run policy, too. For there is growing evidence that the corrosive effects of high unemployment will cast a shadow over the economy for many years to come. Every time some self-important politician or pundit starts going on about how deficits are a burden on the next generation, remember that the biggest problem facing young Americans today isn’t the future burden of debt — a burden, by the way, that premature spending cuts probably make worse, not better. It is, rather, the lack of jobs, which is preventing many graduates from getting started on their working lives.

So all this talk about structural unemployment isn’t about facing up to our real problems; it’s about avoiding them, and taking the easy, useless way out. And it’s time for it to stop.

No, Dr. Krugman, it is not time for it to stop.

It is past time for it to stop.

Long past time.

But since no matter how right we are -- no matter how many times or how many facts we can muster -- no one with the power to stop it will ever in a million years listen to a bunch of shrill, potty-mouthed Liberals, it looks like it's up to you.

Best of luck.