Against Learned Helplessness

Expanded public investment for job creation consumes 97 times its weight in excess political realism.

The high priests of financial austerity and tax cuts for the wealthy prefer private opulence and public squalor. They would rather let families languish in protracted unemployment while schools crumble, levees fail and bridges collapse.

Be realistic, demand the impossible -- living wage jobs for all!

"...5 million green jobs, national infrastructure bank, hybrid cars, solar panels, mass transit, energy-efficient housing, new Civilian Conservation Corps, universal broadband, pre-K, reading tutors, afterschool and home care for all."

Against Learned Helplessness - NYTimes.com

By Paul Krugman, 5/29/11

"...In pointing out that we could be doing much more about unemployment, I recognize, of course, the political obstacles to actually pursuing any of the policies that might work. In the United States, in particular, any effort to tackle unemployment will run into a stone wall of Republican opposition. Yet that’s not a reason to stop talking about the issue. In fact, looking back at my own writings over the past year or so, it’s clear that I too have sinned: political realism is all very well, but I have said far too little about what we really should be doing to deal with our most important problem."

"As I see it, policy makers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there’s nothing they could do. And those of us who know better should be doing all we can to break that vicious circle."

Read Paul Krugman's op-ed

Posted by Chuck Bell at 7:02 AM