Paul Krugman

The ignorance among many North Carolinians about corporate influence in politics is surpassed only by the ignorance about economics, with Republican policy makers among the most deluded. Blinded by fantasies of American exceptionalism, GOTP lawmakers craft policies to cure problems that don't exist, while ignorance the elephants in our collective living room.

One of their most destructive fantasies is the level playing field.

Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.

Paul Krugman writes today in his NY Times blog that we appear to be heading into a Japan-like lost decade.

I used to think that business leaders aligned themselves with the Republican Party because they thought conservative lawmakers would help them make more money. After all, making money is the only reason businesses exist in the first place, so why not invest in a political machine that helps achieve that prime directive. But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank: the tables got turned.

It's one thing to have personal beliefs, but it's another thing entirely to use those personal beliefs as a foundation for public policy. The conservative beliefs of Blue Dogs when it comes to deficit spending, for example, are grounded in conventional wisdom which doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Paul Krugman lays it out. Conservative representatives like Kissell and Shuler would do well to embrace fact-based decision-making, and stop relying on Republican mythology to defend their votes.

Whenever my feed reader serves up national coverage about North Carolina, it's rarely good news. Today's column in the New York Times by Paul Krugman is no exception. Blue Double Cross.

On Monday, just a week after the White House photo-op, The Washington Post reported that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina was preparing to run a series of ads attacking the public option.