Paul Krugman: For a Struggling Economy, Fatalism May Be Deadly

Our current economic discourse in the United States is pervaded by fatalism. Leave aside the people who insist that somehow President Obama has destroyed capitalist incentives by passing Mitt Romney’s health care plan and threatening to raise tax rates to Clinton-era levels. Even among people who should be sensible, you hear many assertions that run something like this: historically, recovery from financial crisis is usually slow, so we have to accept a slow recovery this time around too.

Actually, that’s more or less what Mr. Obama has been saying.