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POPSIs the Economy Recovering? The Curious Case of 1920 vs. 1929
The basic questions we need to ask here are: 1. Why do economies recover? 2. Are we recovering? Q. Why do economies recover? A. They recover because bad investments made during the bubble are liquidated, valuable capital is no longer being wasted on them, new capital is formed from savings, and profitable enterprises attract new capital to expand. Low real interest rates caused by increased savings encourage borrowing, manufacturers use the capital to make new machines, producers of consumer goods buy them, cash goes through the system, consumers see things are getting better, more consumer goods are produced, and consumers buy them. It has to happen this way or the recovery will fail. The difficult part of a recovery is ugly. Bankrupt firms need to fail so that valuable capital resources are not wasted on their continuing activities. This means that unemployment rises (10.2% now) and business bankruptcies are high. Trillions of dollars of asset values are wiped out.
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POPSThe Democrats have lost the source of their passion This point by Paul Krugman is so true. Many people who voted for Obama, including myself, did so primarily out of hope that his spirit and belief in change deserved a chance to succeed. My candid perspective is that his spirit began to diminish during his swearing in and has continued to dissipate ever since. It's hard to understand and very frustrating...but i think my feelings of disappointment are shared by many in this country.
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POPSThe Public Option Deception (New Audio) P. Klugman explains how it will be regardless of what it's called. Private health care people will be paying higher premiums along with the increased taxes and eventually the government system will "look" more practical and people will succumb. (I think that's what I got out of it)
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POPSKrugman Sounds The Alarm On Banks - Again.
So who was this thundering bank critic? None other than Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s chief economist — and one of the architects of the administration’s bank policy, which up until now has been to go easy on financial institutions and hope that they mend themselves. Why the change in tone? Administration officials are furious at the way the financial industry, just months after receiving a gigantic taxpayer bailout, is lobbying fiercely against serious reform. But you have to wonder what they expected to happen. They followed a softly, softly policy, providing aid with few strings, back when all of Wall Street was on the ropes; this left them with very little leverage over firms like Goldman that are now, once again, making a lot of money. But there’s an even bigger problem: while the wheeler-dealer side of the financial industry, a k a trading operations, is highly profitable again, the part of banking that really matters — lending, which fuels investment and job
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POPSAt 10% Unemployment America Still Doesn't Have Enough Workers But of course, it's really not much a paradox at all. After years and years of a housing bubble, we have millions of Americans trained in some capacity relating to housing, and those skills are no longer needed. Concepts like this should shred anyone's notion of an output gap. Sure, American hands are underutilized, but if those hands don't have anything to do that's productive, can they really be considered unused "capacity." No, they can't. And this is the problem with big, macro-thinking. You can point to two GDP trendlines and say "Look, undercapacity..." but that totally ignores the ground level where real employees have to find jobs that they're suited for, and no amount of expansionary practice can change that problem.
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POPSPaul Krugman: The politics of spite More: How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern? The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern. Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr. Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years. Remember when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton was a party to murder? When Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those Medicare cuts? And let’s not even talk about the impeachment saga.… It’s an ugly picture. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth anyone trying to find solutions to America’s real problems has to understand.
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POPSHealth Care Winds Blowing for Reform These six quotes in the clip from six sources are NOT from pro-Obama advocates....so their positive statements and/or grudging approval are interesting to consider. Obama scored another goal, 4sure. Checking with friends and party activist we feel the same: he's got the votes to take giant steps forward and it's gonna happen. USA Thanksgiving Day now the proposed suggested deadline. We won the election. We're winning again. Pop for Obama!
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POPSA Bus Named Gutlessness Congress figured it out in about five minutes, as demonstrated by the hogwild porkfest on the stimulus. The American electorate has been a little slower on the uptake, but polls numbers suggest they are getting it. Maybe not specifically the unprincipled, disloyal gutlessness, but the results of it: The American people hate a loser. This should make it fun. USA Today : Mass transit dispatcher Pelosi, public option “essential” to passage. Here’s Krugman, one of the most prominent advocates of expanding government … a.k.a “socialism” in the current political argot … in America today, wringing his hands over the under-the-busification of the public option. Michael Gerson at RCP. Great headline, “Obama’s Crisis: Credibility” Ambinder , surveying the wreckage and declaring the train to be running on time. Sorry to mix metaphors, but the bus he keep throwing people and things under just stalled at a crossing. Here comes the 5:35 to Naked Self-Interest.
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POPSUSA: No Change! Obama fast wie Bush Der Medien-Messias und Heilsbringer bringt eines ganz sicher: No Change! Das Mediengeschöpf Obama zerbröselt! Obama ist damit nicht besser als Frau Merkel... - Merkel bestätigt Wahlbetrug - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9XE_zMPLM ... aber, wer will das schon wahr haben? Am 17. August 2009 sprach Barack Obama an der Veterans of Foreign Wars Konferenz in Phoenix Arizona. Wenn man seine Rhetorik und Wortwahl anhört, dann unterscheidet sie sich in keiner Weise von dem was Bush früher von sich gab. Lesen Sie weiter: Obama spricht genau wie Bush, deshalb heisst er Obusher
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POPSThe So Called Liberal Media XXVIIII: Why Villagers are clueless Those of you who remember Paul Krugman's often harsh criticisms of Obama during the election campaign might be surprised to read Howard Kurtz's media column which puts him first among the disappointed former Obama cheerleaders. Krugman has certainly been critical of Obama's performance in office, but this is only news for Kurtz, not people familiar with Krugman's writings. All Villagers aren't wrong in everything they write obviously, certainly not Kurtz, but this latest error is laughable. I can understand if it was a matter of interpretation, but come on Howard, this one wasn't even close to being on the mark. (h/t Atrios)
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POPSHow Barack Obama Played the Race Card and Blamed Hillary Clinton February 27, 2008 The Obama mass mailings also attempt to appeal to Ohio's labor vote by claiming that Clinton believed that the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, was a "'boon' to our economy." More falsehood: In fact, Clinton had not said that; Newsday originally applied the word "boon" and has now noted the Obama campaign's distortion. In this campaign, Clinton has called for a moratorium on all trade agreements until they are made consistent with labor and environmental standards-- Ignoring all that, the Obama flyer features an alarming photograph of closed plant gates, having no connection to any action of Senator Clinton's, as well as the dubious quotation about her from Newsday in 2006. Newsday has criticized "Obama's use of the quotation" as "misleading ... an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try and win an office." As insidious as these tactics are, though, the Obama campaign's most effective . . . . .
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POPSTurnabout Is Unfair! This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing. Ha. A little ironic, coming from a guy whose big complaint with Obama is that he isn’t socialist enough. What’s great is how well it works if you sub in “Bush,” ”1999,” ”Republican” and “enraged left” for “Obama,” ”2007,” ”Democrat” and “enraged right.” The difference is Bush actually did engage in extensive bipartisanship and didn’t attempt to ice out the opposition, right up to the end. Is it just me or is anyone else astonished that this Nobel laureate economist can’t do basic math? Not that big a surprise a guess, when you consider that the Nobel crowd gives out peace prizes to terrorists and end-time alarmists.
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POPSHealthcare Market Failure? From what I can decipher from his and other claims to support “universal” medical care, a “market failure” occurs when someone is not able to access immediately all of the medical care he or she “needs” immediately. Now, if this is what he means by a “market failure,” then every market (including the distribution of government-produced goods) falls into that category. If I cannot afford a Rolls-Royce, is that due to “market failure”? The very term "market" implies the presence of voluntary exchanges being transacted by individual parties to their mutual benefit...not the mandates of government.
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POPSThe Balloon Deflates
But did it? Maybe we're now experiencing a liberal interlude, not a liberal inflection point. After all, only six months into the new administration, even a talented hot air blower like President Obama, assisted by friendly gusts of wind from the media, is having trouble keeping the liberal blimp afloat. The stimulus hasn't worked. Cap-and-trade and health care reform are in trouble. The can't-we-all-get-along foreign policy isn't leading to a more peaceful world. And the administration seems to have no idea what to do about Guantánamo. Congressional Democrats are nervous. Even Obama's media base is concerned. At the end of last week, three leading Obamaphiles offered their lamentations. "The fact is, Obama may be blowing a major opportunity for reform," worried Joe Klein. "There's now a real risk that President Obama will find himself caught in a political-economic trap," warned Paul Krugman. "Failure. Overwhelming, amazing failure," was David Brooks's take on the administration
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POPSEconomic Credulus that began on President George W. Bush’s watch. But with Obama’s poll numbers slipping on economic issues, Republicans want to lay the economy at the president’s feet. You know, I’m pretty sure in earlier an time, the Associated Bush-bash would have stuck in a phrase along the lines of ”deeply unpopular economic policies” in the second or third graph, rather than tucking that vague polling data reference way down the bottom, and then just using it to suggest cynical Republican political maneuvering. Never mind. I know Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is demanding more national debt. I have a different idea. Forget a second stimulus. If they haven’t managed to even start paying out the first one. How about a Re-Thinkulus. Since it turns out that subsidizing government hacks instead of cutting them, and pouring money into agenda-pushing wishful thinking projects isn’t doing it, it’s a great opportunity to start doing what they should have done in the first place. . . . .
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POPSComic Book Democrats Krugman calls anyone who opposes climate change legislation "traitors against the planet". Al Gore opponents Nazis.Waxman - "GOP unpatriotic ." Comical asshats, all.
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POPSPaul Krugman Admits Political Strategy Underlying ObamaCare (Video) speaking to a small audience of progressive activists in NJ: “…the only reason not to do is that politically it’s hard to do in one step…You’d have to convince people to completely give up the insurance they have, whereas something that let’s people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan, that may evolve into single-payer, but you can do it politically…” There it is in a nutshell. Thank you Paul Krugman, economic adviser to the President, and eminent columnist for the New York Times, for filling us in on what’s really going on. Maybe one of these days someone in the mainstream media will enlighten the public on what so many prominent Democrats seem to have no problem admitting behind closed doors.
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POPS What Would Gaia Think? Earth Treason They have betrayed the planet, and they must suffer the fate of traitors! Paul Krugman at NYT, on warmalism deniers http://www.julescrittenden.com/2009/06/30/earth-treason/
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POPSEarth Treason Eight years later, it’s starting to look like they aren’t anymore. Think about it. Now Krugman’s tossing around the word “treason.” Sounds scary at first, a little cavalier, even dangerous. Sounds like radical left-wing hate speech. It made me worried, because the Department of Homeland Security warned against extremist political hate speech . . . Let’s be real. Krugman is an august Nobel laureate, not some frothing populist wackjob. And it isn’t like total nutcases read the New York Times. DHS was very specific about the threat. It’s from radical right-wing extremists. You don’t have to worry about the left-wing kind. With that kind of weight behind the anti-planet betrayal movement, I’m convinced. I’ve turned the corner. I’m ready to go “green,” but I’m not really interested in pussyfooting around. When someone like Krugman starts using the “T” word, that can only mean it’s time for radical action. No, I don’t mean targeted hits on Earth-hating Republicans or truck bombs
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