..and Salon's take--for overview
http://www.salon.com...ow_no_boundaries/
In todayÂs column, the New York TImes acerbic economist Paul Krugman takes on ratings agency Standard and PoorÂs for its recent decision to downgrade FranceÂs credit from AA+ to AA. The columnist argues that the downgrade has much less to do with the French economy than with how it keeps its house in order. And itÂs a scenario that sounds pretty familiar:
In Europe, as in America, fiscal scolds donÂt really care about deficits. Instead, theyÂre using debt fears to advance an ideological agenda. And France, which refuses to play along, has become the target of incessant negative propaganda.
 HereÂs a clue: Two months ago Olli Rehn, EuropeÂs commissioner for economic and monetary affairs  and one of the prime movers behind harsh austerity policies  dismissed FranceÂs seemingly exemplary fiscal policy. Why? Because it was based on tax increases rather than spending cuts  and tax hikes, he declared, would Âdestroy growth and handicap the creation of jobs.Â
In other words, never mind what I said about fiscal discipline, youÂre supposed to be dismantling the safety net.
S&P, he argues, is punishing France for violating elite consensus.
You might think that Mr. Rehn and S.& P. were basing their demands on solid evidence that spending cuts are in fact better for the economy than tax increases. But they werenÂt. In fact, research at the I.M.F. suggests that when youÂre trying to reduce deficits in a recession, the opposite is true: temporary tax hikes do much less damage than spending cuts.
 If all this sounds familiar to American readers, it should. U.S. fiscal scolds turn out, almost invariably, to be much more interested in slashing Medicare and Social Security than they are in actually cutting deficits. EuropeÂs austerians are now revealing themselves to be pretty much the same. France has committed the unforgivable sin of being fiscally responsible without inflicting pain on the poor and unlucky. And it must be punished.
[. . .]
1 Krugman -vs- 1000, 10000? well-paid bloviators on 'the science of econ' cha. cha. cha.
(Does one even need a pseudo- in there?)