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Comment by bsaunder | Hacker News Reader

I'm continually frustrated by the false dichotomy presented by the mainstream media between "government cut spending"/"government spend more/go into debt".

Clearly another option is central bank bail out. I can accept that some people don't like that option, but it almost seems manipulative by the media to consistently not mention it and call it for what it is. Quantitative Easing = Printing Money. Have a public discussion of its merits.

If a problem seems hard, its because you don't have enough information or aren't seeing all possible solutions. (someone famous must have said this).

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>If a problem seems hard, its because you don't have enough information or aren't seeing all possible solutions.

Unfortunately, you are incorrect. There are problems that are impossible to solve, simply because there exist mutually incompatible definitions of "solve" among interested parties.

""Wicked problem" is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem

The reason why this option isn't mentioned may be that the Lisbon treaty doesn't permit it. I think, if that infamous article 123 didn't exist, the current panic wouldn't even be possible, because the ECB, like every other central bank in the world, would be a potential buyer of last resort (at least in countries that can borrow in their own currency).

> If a problem seems hard, its because you don't have enough information or aren't seeing all possible solutions.

How does the halting problem, or even NP complete, factor into this "theory"?

You also seem to be assuming that there's always a "good" solution. That's clearly not true.

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