Sorry but I’m not seeing the “everyone better off” part.
Not seeing that at all.
Are you thinking it’s free trade that’s taking the country down or socialism? (I realize this is not a “ ‘yes’ or ‘no’ “ question.)
You are aware that this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize were cited specifically for demonstrating that large deficits hurt the economy. This is part of a string of awards to economists who generally support modest deficits to fight recessions, offset by surpluses during normal years.
I can’t say this view of deficits is the consensus view among economists, although it is clearly the mainstream view. There are a lot of Keynesian economists out there who, apparently, can’t be convinced that the problems we face are due to government interventions into mortgage markets, excessively easy credit and huge, unsustainable deficits.
However, since even most Keynesians favor free trade, surveys of economists show that 85 percent believe that all countries involved in free trade benefit in net. (The “in net” qualification is necessary because of the short-run negative effect on those employed in the shrinking sector.) This is a scientific consensus.
In contrast, surveys of climatologists show that only about 50 percent believe in AGW. About a quarter will say that the warming trend we’re in is not substantially due to human activity and about a quarter will decline to state an opinion on the issue. This is far from a scientific consensus.