Paul Krugman:When Zombies Win

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/opinion/20krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas. Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever.

How did that happen? How, after runaway banks brought the economy to its knees, did we end up with Ron Paul, who says “I don’t think we need regulators,” about to take over a key House panel overseeing the Fed? How, after the experiences of the Clinton and Bush administrations — the first raised taxes and presided over spectacular job growth; the second cut taxes and presided over anemic growth even before the crisis — did we end up with bipartisan agreement on even more tax cuts?

The answer from the right is that the economic failures of the Obama administration show that big-government policies don’t work. But the response should be, what big-government policies?

(snip)
Yes, politics is the art of the possible. We all understand the need to deal with one’s political enemies. But it’s one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it’s another to open the door to zombie ideas. When you do that, the zombies end up eating your brain — and quite possibly your economy too.

[snagglepuss]

1. Krugman is utterly brilliant.

k and r


:kick:

[SoCalDem]

6. Imagine Krugman as Treasury Sec & Elizabeth Warren as Fed Chairman

things would get cleaned up!

Those two know what's really going on..

[BrklynLiberal]

9. tallk about a Dream Team!!!!!!!!!!

[pacalo]

2. "...the Republicans are already talking about spending cuts that would offset any positive effects

from the (Obama tax-cut) deal."

For the next two years, the Republicans are in charge of the House agenda. If Obama wants to win back those who are angry about the real possibility of losing Social Security & Medicare, he's going to have to stand up against the Republicans & put aside his bi-partisanship romanticism notions.

[louis-t]

21. It will be more than SS and Medicare that we lose.

Mortgage deduction will go, along with any government program that actually helps people. Here in MI, with a new repug governor, we are about to lose the movie industry which is employing thousands. All because the new governator doesn't think the tax breaks we are giving the movie industry are "worth it". Why do repugs hate anything that actually works?

[applegrove]

3. Great column.

[ibegurpard]

4. the best sentence:

"The answer from the right is that the economic failures of the Obama administration show that big-government policies don’t work. But the response should be, what big-government policies?"
the big government policies that Fox News convinced everyone he was pushing...which is a load of shit of course.
He's a free market supply-sider through and through.

[tomp]

5. which is evidence that repubs and dems are not quite the "enemies" he suggests. nt

[progressoid]

30. Yep.

But if you ask the "average" Repub to describe Obama (and most Democrats), they'll pull out the Socialist card. It's a fucked up world.

[me b zola]

7. Recommended n/t

[myrna minx]

8. K&R n/t

[spanone]

10. k&r

[ProSense]

11. Did anyone see Krugman's piece on Ron Paul:

Paleomonetarism

I used that term — it’s probably not original, but who knows? — in a recent post about the increasingly obscure meaning of the money supply. The best example would surely be Ron Paul, who’s now going to have oversight over the Fed. If you read his stuff, it’s very clear: money is a well-defined quantity that the Fed controls, and inflation comes from — indeed is defined as — increases in that quantity.

What he means, I guess, is monetary base. Here’s the actual relationship between monetary base and inflation:

<...>

It’s also worth nothing that in normal times (not now), monetary base consists overwhelmingly of currency (bank reserves are normally very small), and the majority of US currency isn’t even being held in the United States.

It’s kind of terrifying, in a way, to realize that the politically dominant faction in America right now has a view of money, what it is, and how it works that hasn’t been true since the early 19th century, if it ever was.

[Odin2005]

12. BRAINS!!!

[Romulox]

13. Krugman spent the 90s as a "free trader" and globalization cheerleader. HE is a big part of "how".

Glad that he's found Jesus and all (shades of John Edwards?) But HE, himself, is a HUGE part of the ideology that got us to this point.

Krugman has advocated free markets in contexts where they are often viewed as controversial. He has written against rent control in favor of supply and demand,<125> argued that "sweatshops" are preferable to unemployment,<28> challenged minimum wage and living wage laws,<126> likened the opposition against free trade and globalization to the opposition against evolution via natural selection,<127> opposed farm subsidies<128> and mandates, subsidies, and tax breaks for ethanol,<129> questioned NASA's manned space flights,<130> and written against some aspects of European labor market regulation.<131><132> He once famously quipped that, "If there were an Economist’s Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations 'I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage' and 'I advocate Free Trade'."<133><134>

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

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41qd-M9PuYL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Pop-Internationalism-Paul-Krugman/dp/0262611333

[Time for change]

15. I believe you're taking that statement out of context

You quote one paragraph in a long article, which contains discussion a wide variety of his views, most which are highly progressive. Furthermore, the article continues where you left off:

However, Krugman argues in the same article (Journal of Economic Perspectives, fall 1987) that given the findings of New Trade Theory "free trade is not passé, but it is an idea that has irretrievably lost its innocence. Its status has shifted from optimum to reasonable rule of thumb...it can never again be asserted as the policy that economic theory tells us is always right". However, in the same paper he declares to be in favor of free-trade given the enormous political costs of actively engaging in strategic trade policy (i.e. rent-seeking) and because there is no clear method for a government to discover which industries will ultimately yield positive returns. Furthermore, Krugman expressed in that article that the phenomena of increasing returns (of which strategic trade policy depends) by no means disproves the underlying truth behind comparative advantage.

On US race relations, Krugman has repeatedly criticized the Republican Party leadership for what he sees as a strategic (but largely tacit) reliance on racial divisions.<135><136><137> In his Conscience of a Liberal, he wrote

The changing politics of race made it possible for a revived conservative movement, whose ultimate goal was to reverse the achievements of the New Deal, to win national elections – even though it supported policies that favored the interests of a narrow elite over those of middle- and lower-income Americans.<138>

"Free Trade" is not a monolithic concept. There are numerous varieties of "free trade", and I think that it is oversimplifying the issue to discount a Nobel Prize winning economist just because he happens to have advocated one version of free trade.

[snagglepuss]

17. +1

[Romulox]

18. So...the entire book "Pop Internationalism" has been taken out of context?

Praise for Krugman's book "Pop Internationalism":

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122394373157731081.html

Krugman in defense of sweatshops:

http://www.slate.com/id/1926/

"'Free Trade' is not a monolithic concept. There are numerous varieties of' 'free trade', and I think that it is oversimplifying the issue to discount a Nobel Prize winning economist just because he happens to have advocated one version of free trade. "

We aren't speaking of abstractions here; Krugman was championing Clinton's version of "free trade", NAFTA, MFN China, etc., the results of which are readily observable.

[AlbertCat]

28. Krugman's book "Pop Internationalism":

From 1997... more than a decade ago.

You keep proving Krugman's point.... why is everyone thinking in terms of the past?... that we now know doesn't work?

[AlbertCat]

26. "Free Trade" is not a monolithic concept.

Yes, and I think Krugman's idea of free trade come with responsibility, regulations, oversight, and obligations.

But thanks "Romulox" for the Right Wing talking points.... incomplete and full of omissions... y'know, the half-assed kind of thinking that gets us into these Republican fueled messes... Like what Krugman is talking about in this very piece!....
Because that allows us to debunk them and get some real "Krugman" out there.

[xchrom]

14. recommend

[Poboy]

16. "We are an Empire now, we make our own reality".

This denial and 'extend and pretend' attitude by the elite and their servants (politicians)is costing us everything we have.

[lonestarnot]

19. Denny Hastert, is he looking for a job? Maybe we could hire him for Zombie Eatin' duty.

:puke:

[Martin Eden]

20. Obama helped to empower bad ideas

Krugman writes:

President Obama, by contrast, has consistently tried to reach across the aisle by lending cover to right-wing myths. He has praised Reagan for restoring American dynamism (when was the last time you heard a Republican praising F.D.R.?), adopted G.O.P. rhetoric about the need for the government to tighten its belt even in the face of recession, offered symbolic freezes on spending and federal wages.

None of this stopped the right from denouncing him as a socialist. But it helped empower bad ideas, in ways that can do quite immediate harm. Right now Mr. Obama is hailing the tax-cut deal as a boost to the economy — but Republicans are already talking about spending cuts that would offset any positive effects from the deal. And how effectively can he oppose these demands, when he himself has embraced the rhetoric of belt-tightening?

[MannyGoldstein]

22. I, for one, am proud that our President resists purists like Krugman

Krugman claimed that last year's stimulus had to be at least twice as large to prevent a horrible recession - clearly, he was wrong, and SummersGeithnerObama was right.

The economy is strong, and our middle class is vibrant. Unemployment is dropping like a rock. What more do professional left purists like Krugman want?

Sheesh!

[JEB]

24. Sheesh, indeed.

Unemployment is falling like a feather. Dr's and lawyers with established practice make up what remains of the middle class. #0 plus years of Reagan inspired war on working people is killing the middle class and punishing the workers. Sheesh!

[martymar64]

27. Didn't you forget something?

Like a :sarcasm: ?

[AlbertCat]

29. Like a : sarcasm: ?

Like it needed it?

[martymar64]

31. Not everyone is as perceptive as you and I

Some Freeper might wander through, read that and think that we're "coming to our senses".

:dunce:

[Sherman A1]

33. "The economy is strong"????

"the middle class vibrant. Unemployment dropping like a rock?"

Did some of us miss the recovery?

[rhett o rick]

38. Kinda funny how the voters this year didnt agree with your assessment of a "strong" economy. You

must be rich or at least have a job, home and retirement. Millions do not. And the super-rich get richer by stealing money from our children.

[valerief]

23. the bullshitters serving the puppetmasters can say whatever they want

as long as young people in the military protect them.

[highplainsdem]

25. K&R

[certainot]

32. the left allows 1000 coordinated radio stations to determine

what is and what isn't acceptable in politics and media and economics.

until the radio is fixed we're fucked.

[Major Hogwash]

34. I need a translater. All I heard was "blah, blah, blah, Obama, blah, blah."

Seriously, does Krugman intend to run for office or just piss and moan from the sidelines?

[eridani]

35. Please point out where his analysis is wrong n/t

[relayerbob]

36. Krugman - Predicted seven ...

of the last one recession(s). Frankly, I'm tired of hearing from him.

[Crunchy Frog]

37. Americans seem to be the most easily and successfully propagandized

people on the planet.

People with lots of money have spent the past couple of decades building an enormous propaganda machine to convince people to vote against their own interests in favor of the interests of a tiny, wealthy elite. This same propaganda machine has successfully managed to make a failed economic ideology into something that dominates our current politics.

I don't really know why Americans are so easily manipulated. Something to do with our national character I guess.