'I bitch. Therefore, I am'

The FLUBA Committee on Spotting Bumper Stickers on Cars Driven by Attractive Young Women is reminded of that one (above), by Paul Krugman's Holiday Season opener for the NY Times. About which it is again impossible to say anything polite:

American workers at big companies used to think they had made a deal. They would be loyal to their employers, and the companies in turn would be loyal to them, guaranteeing job security, health care and a dignified retirement.

Such deals were, in a real sense, the basis of America's postwar social order. ....

The resulting system is imperfect: those who don't work for companies with good benefits are, in effect, second-class citizens. Still, the system more or less worked for several decades after World War II.

It worked for those privileged to be part of it, he means. The majority of Americans who weren't, ought just to shut up and let there betters enjoy their lives in peace?

Americans who couldn't afford General Motors' lemons of the 1970s should have had the self-control to resist the temptation to purchase Toyotas and Hondas that weren't built by UAW workers with six weeks vacation?

We again can only shake our heads at such displays of fundamental economic illiteracy by the Princeton economist:

Regular readers of this column know what I think we should do: instead of trying to provide economic security through the back door, via tax breaks designed to encourage corporations to provide health care and pensions, we should provide it through the front door, starting with national health insurance.

In which case we would have exactly the same moribund economies as those countries (such as family friendly France) that do it Krugman's way now. The security of the corpse is absolute.

The only way anyone can enjoy an above average income in a dynamic economy is to be above average in producing that which one's fellow man values in exchange. Not by having it bestowed on one by politicians spending other peoples' money.

To attempt to have it Krugman's way will end up impoverishing everyone in the war of all against all in the political arena that will result when the Federal Govt tries to spend 30% of GDP.