Friedman Links Messes in Europe and Mideast

From “Two Worlds Cracking Up,” Thomas Friedman, NYT:

“In Europe, the supranational project did not work, and now, to a degree, Europe is falling back into individual states.  In the Arab world, the national project did not work, so some of the Arab states are falling back onto sects, tribes, regions and clans.

“In Europe, the supranational project did not work because the European states were never ready to cede control over their budgets to a central authority that would ensure a common fiscal policy to back up a common currency.

“In the Arab world, the national project did not work — in many, but not all cases — because the tribes, sects, clans and regional groups that make up these Arab states, whose borders were drawn up by colonial powers, were unwilling or unable to meld genuine national communities.”  Italics in original.

And all timed to determine the outcome of America’s presidential election!

 

Hey, GOP, Darwin and Keynes Were Both Right

I guess it’s too much to ask from folks who can’t accept Darwin, but why can’t the GOP recognize that Keynes was right?  They look at Europe and draw exactly the wrong conclusions.

From “Europe’s Ills Reach the Heart of the Presidential Race,” Richard W. Stevenson, NYT:

“But whichever side of the ocean you are on, few topics are more ideologically divisive than fiscal policy, so it is no surprise that left and right are drawing very different conclusions from what is happening.

“From one perspective, the European experience provides yet more evidence that trying to cut budget deficits too aggressively can backfire in a big way when economies in most nations remain fragile.

“Britain’s austerity experiment in particular has been judged by economists to have been ill-timed and poorly constructed at best.  It is a reminder, in the consensus view, that the basic tenets of Keynesian economics — primarily, that government spending plays a key role in maintaining demand when the private sector is struggling in a financial crisis — remain as valid as ever.

“In the United States, the British experience is being held up by Democrats and mainstream economists as an object lesson in the risks inherent in aggressive short-term budget cutting amid signs that the recovery could be losing traction again.

“However flawed the stimulus plan that Mr. Obama pushed through Congress in 2009, fiscal policy has helped the United States generate stronger growth rates coming out of the recession than Britain or the euro zone countries as a whole.”  Emphasis added.