What's interesting about this article isn't the text, but the subtext:
Gross goes on to spend some time mocking the “ivory tower theorem” that deficit reduction will convince consumers to spend more now because they’ll worry less about taxes and service cuts later. “I know of no family,” he writes, “who, after watching the Republican candidates’ debate in New Hampshire, went out the next day and bought themselves a flat screen under the assumption that their Medicare entitlements would be cut in future years and the U.S. budget balanced.” That theory belongs “in the trash bin of theses and research aimed more towards academics than a practical remedy to America’s job crisis.”
So what should we do? “Government must temporarily assume a bigger, not a smaller, role in this economy, if only because other countries are dominating job creation with kick-start policies that eventually dominate global markets.”
So, this isn't news -- even the die-hard Obama supporters shuffle their feet and mutter a bit when the contradiction inherent in supporting immediate deficit reduction during 9% unemployment comes up. But what's interesting is that our elites are starting to openly say something which would have been mocked a month and a half ago. To some extent, this is the DFH Meme Pattern.* But it represents a massive shift in public opinion. And the question is: does this validate Obama's model of engagement with conservatives?
President Obama is known to be fond of the tactic of putting people with moronic opinions in charge of the things they have moronic opinions about, as a way of forcing either them or their followers to come to terms with the stupidity of their beliefs. He has pursued this tactic relentlessly when dealing with the GOP majority, letting them have their way on the vast majority of legislation, including whether or not he even staffs his government. This has been widely derided as weakness, appeasement, "negotiating with himself," and/or evidence that the President is not a Progressive. Some or all of that must be true.
But if bond fund managers, the definition of America's current unelected elite, are saying that we need government stimulus . . . has the time passed when our conservative and elite friends are happy to destroy our livelihoods for spite? Or is this more a sign that the 2012 GOP field is pretty weak, so it's just not worth trying to destroy the country just to win in 2012 any more?
Anyways, just wanted to open a conversation about the Kremlinology of a member of the US financial elite talking sense.
*1) You are a DFH traitor idiot for believing this meme.
2) This meme is old news and everyone knows it.