Krugman: The West is sinking into the west

post from AMERICAblog News on 29 July 2011 11:00:18 PM. © AMERICAblog News

Sorta. Metaphorically at least. And in the short term.

Paul Krugman correctly points out that the advanced economies (U.S., Europe, Japan) are all stuck in similar self-killing & elite-promoted morasses ? austerity now, for thee but not for me ? at the same time that the growing markets, the emerging economies, are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Krugman (my emphasis):

The Halt and the Lame

Simon Johnson writes about who?s worse ? America or Europe? Basically I agree with his assessment: Europe has more fundamental problems in sheer economic terms, because it adopted a single currency without the necessary institutions to make it workable. America has a long-run budget problem, but our current mess is entirely political. Unfortunately, that doesn?t make it any easier to solve.

What?s extraordinary, though, is the paralysis that has taken over essentially the entire advanced world. America is hamstrung by its crazy right; Europe by its single currency that can be neither abandoned nor accompanied by sufficient reforms to make it work; Japan by lousy demography and monetary timidity that is now deeply ingrained in expectations.

About the U.S. we all see the obvious: the Crazies are in charge of the right wing of the RightWing, and the NeoCons are trying to finesse them through the next election. How's that working out? Not so well?

About Europe, Krugman writes in a separate post:

In short, what the markets seem to be seeing is disaster on the periphery and the Japanification of the core. And I can?t say they?re wrong.

"Japanification at the core" means even the Germans aren't getting off Scot-free (click the link). After all, those geniuses hold that eagerly-incurred and corruptly-induced Greek debt.

GP