Granted, I’m a bit strange, but I enjoy studying economics… And as much as you’d suspect I’d go searching for only that evidence which supports my free market biases, that’s not entirely the case… I do in fact subject my nervous system to even the most Keynesian of Keynesians, the likes of Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman and others… I suspect therefore that someday in the not too distant future some caring soul might suggest a little Botox to undo the crevices etched between my eyebrows…

It is indeed troubling:
In this morning’s NY Times Mr. Krugman emphatically states the opposite of the logic I was reared on… He implies that the path to our nation’s prosperity involves tax and spending hikes (reading Krugman does more to add character to my brow line than just about anything I can imagine)… What probably frustrates me the most is his penchant for blurting, with no links to studies that might support his position…

When you have a little time, if you’re a bit strange, read Krugman’s article, and this one [I just quickly Googled] that leans more toward my bias…

In the end, shouldn’t we simply default to commonsense? I mean shouldn’t we apply to government spending the same logic we apply to our personal spending?

I know people, personally and professionally, who operate their finances much like our government (present and immediate past administrations in particular), and I know people who pay off their credit cards every month, save for their vacations and store nuts for the winter… I find the latter (save for the obsessive/compulsive) to be, virtually without exception, happier and healthier than the former…

Unscientific as that (comparing gov’t money management to personal, and comparing personal happiness among spenders and savers) is, I think ultimately that’s how we should consider how we allow our government to operate going forward… Doesn’t Europe clearly make the case?