Paul Krugman: Macroeconomic Machismo

Atrios, weighing in on the Kinsley Kontroversy, suggests that the evident urge to make Someone Suffer — Someone Else, of course — reflects sadism. But I don’t think that’s right. Lack of compassion, sure; an inability to imagine what it must be like for someone less fortunate than oneself and one’s friends, definitely. But I think that the linked Scott Lemieux post, which equates the austerian fixation on stagflation with the neocon fixation on Munich, is much closer to the mark.