Word of the Day: “sado-monetarism”

Paul Krugman, fighting the good fight  against draconian austerity measures at a time when stimulus is needed, lets fly  from his drawn bow  a couple of zingers:

Spanish banks did indeed need a bailout. Spain was clearly on the edge of a “doom loop” — a well-understood process in which concern about banks’ solvency forces the banks to sell assets, which drives down the prices of those assets, which makes people even more worried about solvency.  …

Even as European leaders were putting together this rescue, they were signaling strongly that they have no intention of changing the policies that have left almost a quarter of Spain’s workers — and more than half its young people — jobless.

Call it the Darth Vader approach to economic policy; Mr. Asmussen is in effect telling the Greeks, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

… a mentality that sees economic pain as somehow redeeming, a mentality that a British journalist once dubbed “sado-monetarism.”

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Relief for beleaguered Nook lovers!

http://murphybros.blogspot.com/p/read-murphy-on-your-nook.html

We now return you to your regularly scheduled essay.

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This is something more than breakfast wit.    For there does tend indeed to be some correlation between one’s take on economics -- in principle a purely scientific, mathematico-empirical matter, free of all input  from personal quirks -- and one’s broader philosophy, and with that, one’s personality.  Thus a number of prominent economists  have been Ayn-Randers -- a Weltanschauung which, as much as nihilism or Branch-Dravidianism, should  at the outset  disqualify one  from any role in public life.