Krugman's take on Roubini's been interesting over the years. The main thing needing to be done right now is to blow the whistle on impossibly cruel, frightening and ultimately economically useless austerity programs. In that light, this whole article reads like a laundry list of stuff to make up for not doing that, for refusing to advocate fiscal spending on a scale that would restore full employment. Not reduce unemployment; restore full employment.

Roubini's strong suit is warning. But I'd look to Krugman for ways out.

Think about the things that are not happening.

Starvation
Lack of housing
Scarce resources

The problem for 'jobs' is that we are awash in goods and products like Android that are delivering the power of a magic wand and it fits in your back pocket.

The economy is Disneyland. But if you work at Disneyland, you don't make enough money to visit Disneyland; however you get free passes.

In the future, we will all work for Disneyland and we will all get free passes.

I have seen a lot of decent diagnosing of the problems. I've also seen a fair amount of proposing of, if not solutions, solid steps in the right direction.

What I consistently fail to see in these articles is how the solutions being offered can ever be implemented without the use of a magic wand. Yes yes I understand that government investment in infrastructure would help stimulate the economy and yes I understand that the economic sector needs a major overhaul and yes I know that there must be very heavy consequences attached to playing chicken with the world economy.

What I would like to know is what path these many geniuses can offer to get such desperately needed reforms past impossibly corrupt political systems. How do you get rid of the fox when its his job to guard the hen house? How to you impose economic reforms using a political system where elected officials are almost all drawn from the class that most benefits from the current system and who depend almost entirely on the rulers of that system to ensure their re-election?

Well, that's the question, isn't it, Lynx?

We are so fucked.

It's in the interest of the super wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, as Warren Buffet himself recently said. With the growing inequalities of wealth distribution, violent means, not taxes, is what is going to redistribute that wealth. When people get desperate, they don't give a shit about rule of law anymore.

Okay, so the Anglo-Saxon method doesn't work, and the European method doesn't work. Is the a method anywhere that DOES work? Or are we supposed to revert to some chicken-and-gourd based system?

Are we still pretending that the London riots were a desperate cry for help from the lower class and not an outburst of opportunistic criminality by the bored middle class?

@8, so far as I can tell the London riots were opportunistic criminality by the lower class, though I don't doubt that at least some opportunistic middle and upper class punks gladly joined them (not that you could doubt it, since it's been documented).

What I really want to know is just where in the post or the article you find the slightest reference to the riots, let alone a justification for them?

The Europeans are doing capitalism correctly, more or less. (Only caveat is entrepreneurial innovation, which we seem to do better at).

Ours is a global economy, however, so when American real estate ponzi schemes and wall street gambling rings come crashing down from their over-inflated heights, Europe is inevitably dragged down with us.

Note that if/when the economic downturn becomes frightening and painful enough, our population's politics will lurch leftward as they did in the 30's. The conservative movement is largely the product of 50 years of being spoiled by a healthy economy and comparatively limited warfare. The go-it-alone cowboy fantasy that fuels that movement quickly looses its appeal when you're not sure where dinner is coming from.

@1 gloomy, Roubini's book Crisis Economics details proposals for the way out.

@11, sure, and now that you mentioned it, here's Krugman and Robin Wells last year on its strengths and shortcomings.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives…

@10:

They can always shoot their horse...

@10 You know the left keeps says this. And I wish people would think this kind of thing through: That when it all comes crashing down then we'll have some sort of social renaissance.

You know what I call this? The James Bond Super-Villain Fantasy School of Social Change. Like how Bloefeld pet's his white cat and blows up the moon so he can take over and lead a utopia of sexy platinum blonde super-men.

So basically the word economy crashes and millions of people will have to become destitute and starve for decades before we finally see the big denouement in American political perspective? Great.

Fact is if it all crashes there is no proof we will have anything other than MORE poverty and misery and MORE entrenched wealth in the hands of the few.

Praying for another miraculously enlightened and fabulously connected rich dude like FDR (and what... the economic engine of WWIII?) to lead us out of disaster seems dubious and rather far fetched.

There is no big event or Deus Ex Machina that is gong to save anybody. It's going to be slow, hard, deliberate, boring work. Frankly i'd like to prevent that crash if at all possible.

Sure. Maybe none of it will pay off and things might get worse anyway. That's reality, right there. But rather than just sit and wait for the Big Crash and then cross our fingers and pray something better rises out of the ashes I'd like to work on something better before the crash.

Just as the nightmare of agricultural life, the more pleasant nightmares of white and blue collar life will only end when what they produce becomes variously unwanted or much cheaper to produce with no or few people.

At that point we either live more freely or indulge in S&M on a societal scale, maintaining the jobs system that would work better as such a game than as a way of getting and enjoying...and might already be so.

Unfortunately, there are many rich people who get off on the real equivalent of the Abominable Fallacy.

@14:
Jesus, the last thing I want is shitty economy. You must be confusing me with Charles Mudede, who gets an erection at any sign of a economic disorder.

I'm just pointing out the political consequences of an economic depression, I am by no means pitching depression as a political strategy.

more likely amurka will turn towards an incompetent quasi-fascist like palin/perry/bachman/ryan/etc. than leftwards. 60 years after mccarthy drove a stake in the heart of the american left, there is no commonly held narrative of resistance to economic injustice except that of conservatism - which is pretty fucking ironic. that's the only place "the masses" know to turn to understand why they're being fucked. an ideology scripted and funded by the plutocracy. we're fucked as fucked can fuck.

Would it be so hard to start a jobs program aimed at putting people to work repairing crumbling bridges, schools, roads and other infrastructure? I'd love to see the Dems run on that and have some kind of WPA/CCC-style mass hiring. Call it something other than stimulus and it wouldn't be too tough a sell to the American people.

The super rich can't figure out what to do with their money? You're wrong. They're spending it building themselves sovereign free-floating nations with no laws, to get away from the rest of trying to build an actual society.

http://inhabitat.com/paypal-founder-inve…

All about not collecting taxes from the Rich.

Currently, 50 percent probability that Greece will be dropped from the ECB and the common currency, btw.