[lbo-talk] Krugman: "The question then is why."

[// ravi]

On Jul 8, 2011, at 3:53 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:
> [ Pretty cynical, if you ask me ... and yet?  --JMH ]
> 
> http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/the-obama-keynes-mystery/
> 
> [...]
> 
> Obama keeps talking nonsense about economics ...
> 
> [...]
> 
> The question then is why.
> 
> [...]
> 
> OK, here's an unprofessional speculation: maybe it's personal. Maybe the president just doesn't like the kind of people who tell him counterintuitive things, who say that the government is not like a family, that it's not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployment is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administration or are leaving soon. 

Is there anyone other than Romer[sp?] who gave him such advice? Much like Bush Jr before him, Obama has surrounded himself with self-validating majordomos or apparatchiks like Summers, Geithner, Goolsbee, Sperling, so on.

	—ravi

P.S: I think Obama sees his role as bridging economics and politics, facts and values - the values of course being the reactionary values that he strongly believes the public currently holds.