Saturday, November 29, 2008

"Kuttner: Another Great Depression A Bigger Risk Than Large Budget Deficits" (with video)


Jed Lewsion, with video (02:19):
This week on NOW on PBS, economist Robert Kuttner states what should be (but unfortunately isn't) conventional wisdom: that it's more important to get this economy going again than it is to manage the federal budget deficit downwards.

As Kuttner points out, our national debt is currently around 40% of GDP, less than a third of 125% of GDP after World War II -- and the economy did pretty well after WWII. To address today's economic crisis, Kuttner recommends a huge stimulus plan to rebuild our antiquated infrastructure and to jumpstart our new energy economy, even if that means increasing our national debt to 60% or more of GDP.

The full video of David Broncaccio's interview of Robert Kuttner is available on NOW's website.

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