The Great Crash was also the rise of Keynes. Since then, we've been assured that Keynes is discredited, presumably because of a brazen misinterpretation of stagflation, and somehow people have been convinced that the public deficit is a problem rather than a solution. Which points to a more general point... Progressives will be fucked until they can do away with this pinnacle of idiocy, both among themselves and in the public: Clearing the deficit is not a sane objective while aggregate demand is depressed, if one's objective is to increase aggregate demand. As one actually competent commentator puts it, lowering the deficit is like treating blood loss with bloodletting.Why nothing of the sort today?
The welfare bill approved by parliament last week will not help to clear the deficit
The evidence is clear that slashing spending during times of depressed employment exacerbates the problem. So the question then becomes, are right wing politicians not convinced by the evidence for some unknown reason (a la global warming and biology), or are they just demagoging to hold onto what power they have remaining?