We Are Not Making It Up as We Go Along

But I share Paul Krugman's strong sense that many in the Pain Caucus are--that they start with a prejudice that more unemployment is somehow better, and look for arguments to justify that.

Paul Krugman:

Making It Up: [O:]ther things equal, demand is higher, the lower the real interest rate. Do you really want to quarrel with that? But right now, thanks to the aftermath of the financial crisis, even a zero nominal rate, which is a slightly negative real rate, isn’t low enough to produce...