Wm. Black rightly reams MSNBC on Krugman

See this article with which I must agree. Black notes that O'Donnell claimed Krugman was a lonely voice against austerity economics, all the rage these days in DC. O'Donnell said this after House Speaker Boehner admitted we have no current debt crisis, which crisis has been a regressive rallying cry for immediate and draconian cuts to important social welfare programs. Black cites other MSNBC hosts decrying Krugman. Chris Matthews did so on 11/9/12, when he said Krugman was on the far left and not to be considered in any grand bargain.

And then there's Morning Joe Scarborough, who has had a long-standing war of words with Krugman over the issue of debt. He continually misrepresents Krugman's position, and did again on this morning's show. And he continually and wrongly claims Krugman is alone, of that only 1 or 2 other economists, agree with him, which has been roundly refuted time and again, Black being one of many pointing this out. Of course Black points out that another MSNBC host, Chris Hayes, has not fallen prey to such nonsense, instead going into wonky detail why austerity economics is not only bad economics but devastating.

Black asserts that most of the MSNBC hosts are completely wrong on both Krugman being alone is this battle against austerity--"Krugman's view is the norm among economists"--but also that Krugman is right one his economic diagnosis and remedy:

"The minority of economists here and in the EU who support austerity is made up overwhelmingly of the people whose policies have proven over the last three decades to be so criminogenic that they produced the epidemics of control fraud that drove the second phase of the S&L debacle, the Enron-era scandals, and the ongoing crisis."

It's a shame that even many on MSNBC are buying into this austerity nonsense. If we'd just listen to the likes of Krugman and Robert Reich* our recovery would be well on its way. But with this latest round of austerity madness, combined with the sequester, we're going to lose significant ground gained. And all for a failed ideology (idiotology) that has proven wrong time and again, and that these losers just cannot accept despite the obvious indicators.

* See Reich's recent post here, lauding the President for telling House regressives that the deficit is not our biggest problem right now. He agrees a lot with Krugman on what we need to do now to get things back on track, and austerity cuts are not it.