On 2010-11-08, at 10:35 PM, Michael Pollak wrote:
> As Krugman said in his epitaph post, they fear 2 things: (1) political opposition and (2) spooking the market...
>
> So it's not that they underestimate the problem. It's that their afraid fully solving it will cause new problems. That's why they hold back.
That and the fact that the unemployment rate has stayed flat at around 9.5% for the past 18 months, which promotes stasis. If it were to shoot upwards again, you'd quickly get a consensus within the administration and probably even in the House for a new round of stimulus.
But absent an emergency, they've relied with fingers crossed on monetary policy, now QE, which the bourgeoisie favours ahead of deficit spending.
Although some within the ruling class have indicated they'd support more spending on job creation in exchange for cutbacks in Social Security and other social programs (natch).