Posted on 09/07/2011 3:49:46 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Want to know why President Obama is going to have such a hard time persuading Republicans to support his jobs proposals this week? Don’t ask a pundit, or a politician, or a pollster. Ask a psychologist.
It has become common for Republicans to deride the very concept of stimulus as absurd, to mock Keynesian economics as an ivory-tower fantasy, and to oppose temporary tax cuts as a recession-fighting measure. But during the Bush administration? All that was orthodox conservative policy.
Some say the explanation for all this is obvious: Republicans want the economy to fail because that is how they will defeat President Obama. After all, didn’t Sen. Mitch McConnell say, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president”? How much clearer can it be?
I don’t believe this sort of behavior is quite that cynical. Psychologists and political scientists talk often of a phenomenon known as motivated skepticism. The idea, basically, is that we believe the evidence and arguments we want to believe, and reject ideas and information that undercut our preferences.
The bottom line is this: Until quite recently, both parties supported the idea that you combat bad economies with stimulus spending. Now, during an extremely bad economy, the Republican Party has completely abandoned that position. That has left them without plausible solutions — the GOP talks now of things that have very little role in boosting short-term demand, such as deficit reduction and regulatory reform — and has left the Democrats without the votes to pass anything. And that’s left the country deep in the hole.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It’s not clear to me why I would want to read one further word from this young man. He apparently has mental problems and cannot remember from one sentence to the next what he has written or what it might mean.
Must be because I do not read the WashComPost.
Because the Rinos figured out that being pro-porkulus was political suicide?
There is a bit of a reminder here that Ryan is less conservative than generally perceived.
Perhaps because Keynesian economics is bad policy, particular in a credit bubble bursting.
You don’t fix a debt problem with more debt.
Huh?
When my bank account says, “0” balance I call myself BROKE. What is it that this
writer doesn’t get? USA is BROKE!
Absolutely, totally false. Bush has never been an example of " orthodox conservative policy". Bush was a good man but hardly a conservative. The reason I and other conservatives oppose socialism is that 1) it doesn't work, 2) it cannot be made to work, 3) even if it could be made to work it is based upon theft.
This article is based upon a lie.
"Motivated skepticism" is generally trumped by another aspect of human nature: Self preservation.
When you have an electorate that is PO'ed, their preferences suddenly become the politicians and the CYA phenomenon kicks in.
I was going to write a rebuttal to this article, but you have stated my whole rebuttal very succinctly. She has no clue about Austrian thought on economics and how the TEA party is rooted in that philosophy (ie a huge portion of the republican base). so much more but not worth it.
Bump
Politicians work in a parallel financial universe which suggests that the only way to get out of debt is to borrow more money. This is difficult for the rest of us to understand but in the weird and wonderful bizzaro world of politics it makes perfect sense.
Keynesian economics performs exceptionally well - in theory.
In practice, however, it must be administered by fallible human beings, to other fallible human recipients, and the old traits of getting the maximum possible while putting out the minimum possible effort reassert themselves.
Keynesian economics depends on on the very flexible altruistic impulses of humanity, which disappear the very moment there is a real challenge to the supply of basic needs. The immediate response to any form of scarcity is to “get mine” first, then if any is left over, share it with close and immediate cohorts. The distant and undistinguished “others” can go hang, they are of no importance anyway.
When scarcity is the result of natural disaster or unforeseen circumstance, it usually self-corrects within a fairly short period of time, either by productive response, or by substitution of other means of achieving the desired ends. When scarcity is artificial, as we are now seeing taking place in this country, the response is trying to assign blame, then hoarding of the products or services that have thus become scarce. The period of scarcity is vastly prolonged, with no easy resolution in sight until the cause of the artificial scarcity is removed.
What we have now is a scarcity of wealth, through real or threatened taxation, and through restrictions on its formation. The fact that EPA has declared carbon dioxide a pollutant has effects far beyond the sullying of the atmosphere (which is already composed in part of carbon dioxide), and moves to thwart the production of carbon dioxide from ANY source.
A large part of the wealth of the world comes from the conversion of carbon compounds, long locked up as mineral deposits beneath the earth’s surface, into goods and energy consumed on a massive scale. At best, regulation can only slow or stall this conversion of energy into useful goods or services, not aid in any way the production or distribution of wealth to the recipients who so desperately need it. And no, money is not at all the same thing as wealth. Any nation, or international agency, may arrogate upon itself the authority to print money, but increasing the number of units of money, does in no way contribute to the increase of wealth.
Money is not a static commodity, it is only a measure of creation of wealth. Wealth, true wealth, is the result of a combination of innovative ideas with the raw materials at hand, and a plentiful supply of cheap energy assures that growth of wealth. Only with wealth, may the impulses toward altruism be exercised.
Keynesian economics is a crock. Of something, and it probably is not pickles.
Ezra, I hop you never develop an ass itch, because I am sure your are to dumb to find your own ass.
The simplest and truest way to state it, so simple that even a liberal should "get it".
The composition of the Republican Party in Congress changed just a bit. Those who lost their seats lost the in part because of their economic fantacism.
Journolist, heal thyself.
It would be amusing if it weren't so pathetic. Klein evidently lacks the basic self awareness to let him see that the quoted sentence applies precisely to the rubbish that routinely spews forth from Klein's own keyboard. He clings to a constipated view of Progressive orthodoxy as if it were a life preserver, and is thus unable to understand how the real world works, assigning goals and motives and ideas to Conservatives that are merely fantasies invented within his own confused mind.
Well Ezra, here’s how that works:
During the Bush administration those “aspirin” where for headaches.
Those same “aspirin” are ineffective and counterproductive against our current severed arm and leg.
Bullshit. John Maynard Keynes was the economist behind this communist crap and Winston Churchhill and Milton Friedman opposed these ideas as far back as the 30s when they were first becoming popular in Europe.
That sentence is just another example of this smarmy little tw_t inventing facts to support his positions.
Everyone here has missed the point. This is part of a bigger meme pushed by the left for decades that there must be something wrong with conservatives.
Conservatives are stupid, otherwise they would agree with liberals.
Conservatives are racists, otherwise they would agree with liberals.
Conservatives are mentally ill, otherwise they would agree with liberals.
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