Baumol's Speaking To Him; Sadly, Ryan Doesn't Seem To Be Listening

The NY Times' Amy Wallace gives a glimpse of Professor Baumol's "The Cost Disease: Why Computers Get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn’t" in her review:

"As the cost of health care continues to be a battering ram in the 2012 presidential campaign, Professor Baumol’s seemingly academic treatise contains a couple of zingers that one can imagine President Obama incorporating into his stump speech. The future is bright, this book argues, as long as policy makers don’t do things that are sure to bring on the storm clouds. 

“The very definition of rising productivity ensures that the future will offer us a cornucopia of desirable services and abundant products,” he writes. “The main threat to this happy prospect is the illusion that society cannot afford them, with resulting political developments — such as calls for reduced government revenues entwined with demands that budgets be in balance — that deny these benefits to our descendants.” 

Are you listening, Paul Ryan? Because Professor Baumol seems to be talking directly to you."

Certainly a relevant book for one of the main decisions facing this electorate. Sadly, Ryan doesn't seem to be listening.