thing is household vs government is not a valid comparison when it comes to debt .. there is a post on that somewhere .. for now ..
Paul Krugman Appears On 'Newsnight,' Battles British Conservatives On U.K. Austerity Policies (VIDEO)
The Huffington Post | By Alexander Eichler Posted: 06/01/2012 1:12 pm Updated: 06/01/2012 1:12 pm
For most Americans, a trip to London means drinking a few pints and maybe taking a picture of one of those guards with the hats. For Paul Krugman, it means critiquing the entire direction of Britain's economic policy.
Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and left-leaning New York Times columnist, appeared on the BBC program "Newsnight" this Wednesday .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18281669 .., jousting with two British deficit hawks over the U.K.'s austerity agenda.
The Brits -- venture capitalist Jon Moulton and Conservative Member of Parliament Andrea Leadsom -- argued that the British government has to reduce spending if the country is to dig itself out of the economic slump it's been in. .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/24/uk-economy-contracted-2012 .. Krugman countered that such a strategy could cause Britain's economy to implode -- since, he said, the public and private sectors need to circulate money to each other in order for anyone to prosper.
"We are not a household. We are an economy," said Krugman. "Your spending is my income, and my spending is your income."
Krugman's argument is that such cuts would cause a major contraction in the American economy, a point that even Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, appeared to echo in an interview with Time .. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/25/490532/romney-budget-cuts-recession/ .. a few days ago.
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