Today’s far right Republican elected officials hate Harvard elite egghead nerds know-it-als until they find one who agrees with them. Enter Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Their bad calculations, omitted data, flawed research led to holy grail of the “Austerity is teh tussin for everything!” study quoted by Republicans and right of center Democrats.
The study was not peer reviewed, the data explicitly excluded economies that disproved their thesis and their spreadsheet was broken. Basically the key “Austerity is the cure” study quoted by conservatives and third way Democrats is useless and wrong in every way. Except very serious people wrote this bullshit study. The actual real conclusion from data: austerity measures are dumb, worry about unemployment…not debt.

It’s essentially a weak political document at this point. Enjoy “belt tightening” & “deficit reduction” (aka public employee layoffs and program cutting) that is so important and good for our communities according to this now debunked study. Also remember “deficit reduction” really means cutting tax rates and public spending.

Also, enjoy people who are liberals like me running around yelling: Krugman was right! Told ya! Just like we were right before Iraq war. Great, now we need to realize we need to find ways to convince people we are right before this shit happens.