Paul Krugman laments but does not condemn the voting public for getting it wrong. We are, after all,  "... often misinformed, and politicians aren't reliably truthful." So it is at least not our fault when we get it all wrong. Get what wrong? Well, Krugman wondered whether the public was clueless about whether "the deficit has gone up or down since January 2010." He got one of his pals, Hal Varian, to run a Google Consumer Survey on the question. And guess what? We got it wrong, "A majority of those who replied said the deficit has gone up, with more than 40 percent saying that it has gone up a lot. Only 12 percent answered correctly that it has gone down a lot." So, according to Krugman, under [in spite of?] Obama the deficit has gone down a lot since 2010. The amount of the deficit in 2010 was 1.3 trillion. The amount of the deficit in 2011 was 1.3 trillion.           Obama's 2011 deficit same as 2010: $1.3 trillion ...(Read Full Post)