Paul Krugman | The World According to the GOP

I wanted to post the following. I like Paul Krugman and think he is a reasoned and well grounded in actual systems theory.

I'm hoping that vistors to this forum will take time to read the entire article. He again exposes the debt/deficeit myth of the GOP. In doing this he indirectly agrues against my Big Business = Bad/Evil philosophy however he does it in a way that I can accept that he may have a point.

www.truth-out.org...

It's basically an anit-austerity piece which I applaud.

His core message in this piece is....

First, CEOs still talk as if debt and deficits were the central issue of economic policy. They never deserved that place; they certainly don't deserve it now that the deficit has clearly been falling too fast and the debt outlook is stable for the next decade. Yet they can't let go of the notion that a grand bargain on the budget - as opposed to an end to destructive austerity - is what we need.

Second, many CEOs are, I believe, genuinely naive about the people they deal with. They believe, for example, that Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, actually cares about deficits. They haven't grasped, or refuse to grasp, the reality that the whole thing about deficits was really about using the economic crisis as an excuse to tear down the social safety net.

Finally, CEOs are still trying to position themselves as the middle ground between extremists on both sides, when the reality is that we have a basically moderate Democratic party confronting a radical Republican party that doesn't play by any of the normal rules. If you insist on thinking of senators Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren as somehow symmetrical figures, you're already so out of touch with political reality that there's no way you're going to have useful influence.

This is something I have to consider even though it really messes with my worldview.

reply to post by FyreByrd


As advised, I read the whole article. No guarantees I am tracking with every sentence.

To me it sounds like the man is wandering too far from economics on this. He is using his reputation as someone who knows economics and goes off the reservation by giving his opinion on a whole host of other things.

He is entitled to whatever he thinks, no doubt. It's a free country. If someone wants to publish his opinion, again, no worries. However, the reader (me) is entitled to parse what he says. Unfortunately I do not see much substance here. CEO's are naive. Republicans are hell bent on destroying social safety nets. Deficits and debts really don't mean much.

For someone I would look to for specific insight and specifics, this just sounded too emotional and vapid.

Please do not take it against the OP, just the article.

I see something completely predictable here. I see the left moving to the center just in time for upcoming elections and then casting their opposition as being radical.

There is truly nothing new under the sun.

They are all just a bunch of liars and power is their end game.

Anyone who would consider the democratic party as moderate in this day and age is actually the one out of touch.

I'd say the GOP is actually more moderate and they've been willing to negotiate on issues such as unemployment benefits or what have you.

We see very little concessions from the democrats whatsoever.

Moderate as shutting down the government and not caring about wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a day?

reply to post by JeffyJoe


Ha and what came first? The President who refused to negotiate at all. Flat out said so and then blamed the opposition for not doing exactly what he was demanding they do? In whose book is that sitting down at the table to negotiate?

Here is a little history to help you out.

link

reply to post by MsAphrodite


To defund something that, yes has flaws, but provides an open market place for health care. When shown "Obamacare" and the Affordable Care Act, many people did not want Obamacare, but thought the ACA sounded like a good idea and would help out a lot of people. He had no reason to budge on his stance because many people agreed he was doing a good thing. I'm neither Republican or Democrat and oppose the idea of parties because it is just a competition and only hurts the nation. The ACA helps a lot of people and shouldn't need to be defunded. It is ridiculous to spend the amount of money the government did on a crap website but that is besides the issue. Until political parties are gone, our nation will continue to go downhill.

FyreByrd
I wanted to post the following. I like Paul Krugman and think he is a reasoned and well grounded in actual systems theory.

What theory do you believe in? Krugman's theory is deeply rooted in Keynesian philosophy and is questionable on the macro level of economics. As a solid question, with the Feds and the Government pumping money into the Government, shouldn't their theories be producing the glorious results they claim they would?!

The Fed is propping up the NYSE, giving a sense of stability, along with our constant and insanely high expenditures on underfunded programs to give a sense that it is all "okay". Austerity must happen, regardless of what Professor Krugman claims otherwise.

ownbestenemy

FyreByrd
I wanted to post the following. I like Paul Krugman and think he is a reasoned and well grounded in actual systems theory.

What theory do you believe in? Krugman's theory is deeply rooted in Keynesian philosophy and is questionable on the macro level of economics. As a solid question, with the Feds and the Government pumping money into the Government, shouldn't their theories be producing the glorious results they claim they would?!

The Fed is propping up the NYSE, giving a sense of stability, along with our constant and insanely high expenditures on underfunded programs to give a sense that it is all "okay". Austerity must happen, regardless of what Professor Krugman claims otherwise.

You I will answer, the rest of the replies are just so much rubbish. The effort is appreciated but, IMO, so much wasted energy.

Ownbestenemy. Your post is worthy of a considered response.

Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist who also writes in the area of politics and has for years. Yes he leans in the direction of so called Keynesian Economic Philisophy. Keynesian Economics is a valid as the Chicago school. In fact I believe it is much more based in real life then the more magic market Chicago school.

You are missing the point the 'Feds pumping Money' into the Government is not the issue here and do recall that the Federal Reservse LOANS money to the government at interest which we the Taxpayers have to pay. It is in the interest of the FED to keep the debt high. That is what Mr. Krugman refers to about the 'deficiet falling too fast'.

From a reality based viewpoint. He is talking about stimulus programs and the government directly pumping money into the 'main street' to 'kickstart' the economy thereby raising government revenues with which to SERVICE the DEBT. The more people working, at good jobs, the higher the tax base - it's a reinforcing loop. If you cut services and jobs and sell off assests (sound familiar?) it SERVICES the DEBT for only a short while then you have to cut more, sell off more and it's another reinforicing loop but one that leads to bankrupcy and desolution.

It's not about the Debt - It's about whether you want to pay the interest and pricipal in a sustainable cycle or just pay it off for now but have nothing left and nothing to show for it.

It's bad business - the FED, the Wealthy - none of them want the DEBT to go away - they just want their interest payments to keep coming in. The only, only way to do so in an ongoing way is to put people to work and raise government revenues. The other way - austerity - is just stealing from the people, all the people.

It worked for FDR - the new deal was/is a huge success. The CCC, WPA and other government stimulus plans built infrastructure all over the country that still serves us to this day (all that hasn't been sold off to private business).

The GOP - say's WWII brought us out of the depression but research (and I don't have it at hand, but will look for it when I get home) shows that we were well on our way back to a healthy economy before even Lend/Lease began.

Austerity is too short sighted. It's the old 'take the money', don't look back and run. Leaving the 'poor suckers' to starve and die. If that's what you want for yourself, your kids and grand kids, go for it. Me, I want a STABLE world for my daughter, don't need her to be rich, just not scared all the time. The GOP wants us SCARED and DOCILE all the time.

reply to post by FyreByrd


In fact I'll add more from Krugmans Blog:

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com...

A Dark Age of Empirical Work
A correspondent writes, in regard to my note on economics as science (or not), that the rise of empirical work is not entirely a good thing:

As the Taliban wing of the economic profession got more and more stronghold of standard macro, I think that many reasonable people and students) simply retreated into safer territory where the question were smaller and well defined and lots of data. Why bother arguing about macro when large fraction of that crowd, if not screaming, was really not willing to engage in a serious discussion and refusing to even read the relevant work? Easier, then, to change the conversation into something more pleasant.
Good point. I’d add that unless you at least try to think in terms of a broader model, all the empirical work in the world can’t answer some questions — and you can all too easily draw the wrong conclusions. Take Chetty’s very example, the effects of unemployment insurance. He reports evidence that extended benefits have only a small effect on the time people spend searching for work. But suppose the result went the other way; would that say that UI was hurting employment? Not necessarily, and I’d say not at all: right now the economy is constrained not by a lack of willing workers but by a lack of demand, so that making workers more choosy about accepting jobs would, to a first approximation, have no effect at all on overall employment.

And interpreting the micro results on job search as having a one-to-one impact on the macro outcome is a classic case of implicit theorizing, which is what people who imagine themselves to just be looking at the facts often do.

So yes, there is a dark side to all this data-driven work; data are good, but not if they’re used to dodge the core issues.

reply to post by FyreByrd

As the Taliban wing of the economic profession got more and more stronghold of standard macro, I think that many reasonable people and students) simply retreated into safer territory where the question were smaller and well defined and lots of data.

When this is the kind of diatribe we see coming from him my opinion of his intellectual integrity diminishes.

Krugman spent the better part of the last 6 years telling the country that we should be spending twice as much to get the economy going. That we should be racking up even more debt. And that anyone who questions the validity of his statements is part of the "Taliban wing" of the economic profession.

He's the guy that says deficits don't matter, debt is an irrelevant metric by which to measure the health of an economy, and that we should have given even more money to the financial sector and all the irresponsible people that busted during the housing collapse.

He's a loon.

reply to post by FyreByrd


The New Deal was a complete failure. While needed infrastructure was built, it did nothing for the economy and it did nothing for the unemployment rate. His Treasury Secretary even made a statement about it.

Greece is a textbook example of what Krugman is proposing. Raise the tax rates across the board(raising taxes on the rich would only bring in somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 billion dollars at a 100% tax rate), and when that and more "economic stimulus" doesn't work austerity measures will kick in. Then when that doesn't work, it will turn to confiscating the wealth directly from businesses and citizens.

reply to post by FyreByrd


I always click on a Krugman article when I see one, I like to hear what he has to say. But he misses the appeal of the right at this point, which is that they seem more tuned in to fundamentals. For instance, when does has the system gone to far with debt? When do you have a disaster on your hands? That's something I would like to hear Krugman say, as well as why. The tea party right is tuned into the facts that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, but Krugman doesn't seem as tuned in. When does TSHTF? Why aren't we there? I feel if Krugman would acknowledge the fragility of the status quo, and what could go wrong, just to show me he has thought about it, I could really embrace his ideas, knowing he's thought about it all. I hope he talks a little more about this sort of thing, and shows us his thinking considers all possibilities, if indeed it does.

This thread should be renamed The GOP and their bubble.

You know their own little world. Obama get blamed for the shutdown, that they caused...then continue to say things like Obama should take responsibility insteading of blaming...Hypocrites.

Obama and the so called Kenyan issue was wrong..but have no problem with a Canadian shutting down their government..again hypocrites.

So much more but you get what I am saying.

Spookybelle
Anyone who would consider the democratic party as moderate in this day and age is actually the one out of touch.

I'd say the GOP is actually more moderate and they've been willing to negotiate on issues such as unemployment benefits or what have you.

We see very little concessions from the democrats whatsoever.

I'm sorry, but say what again? The GOP is not moderate, they have been moving steadily right for the past 30 years. If they move any further over they'll end up in Tea Party territory. Oh wait, they already did that.

MsAphrodite
reply to post by JeffyJoe

 

Ha and what came first? The President who refused to negotiate at all. Flat out said so and then blamed the opposition for not doing exactly what he was demanding they do? In whose book is that sitting down at the table to negotiate?

Here is a little history to help you out.

link

Negotiate over what? Blackmail?

government social programs.....like SS and medicare? welfare and ebt??? these are doing well and look good for the future? So far every social program is a train wreck, and ACA will be no different. Non fundable, uncontrollable, fed run nightmare. Even if this joke could contain some cash reserve, which it cannot, but if so, this piggybank would be raided by all angles of government and be another IOU filled vault. We need not more taxes, just more legal taxpayers. I agree much more with the conservative approach than these socialist from the left. Spend someone elses money somewhere else....

when in government studies, it shows that incomes for the top 1% has risen far faster and higher than the rest of the population, there is a redistribution of wealth of this nation to the wealthy. it is simple math, the people that live month to month have seen their income stagnate or go down, and the people that are wealthy have seen enormous gains in their income.

the whole idea for a representative government is so ALL PEOPLE ARE REPRESENTATED, that's why a kings, or dictators do not have functioning modern democratic societies....the money stays at the top.

the problem with china is you have a comparatively small group of wealthy, that pay dirt poor wages to their people. they build entire cities that set vacant, because the very people you want to move into them, can't afford it.

the problem in Russia is that you have almost a mob controlled government that again channels the vast oil wealth to a select few, and the majority of it's people are paid dirt poor wages,

the healthiest economies are the ones where most everyone has the economic buying power to create a stable and overall rich society. do the wealthy get less? yes. but they would live in a society where they can comfortably co-exist.

look, everyone wants to be wealthy, but I don't want to live in a walled off estate, that every time I leave, I have to have armed security to make sure I, or my family, are not killed because of my wealth.

FyreByrd
I wanted to post the following. I like Paul Krugman and think he is a reasoned and well grounded in actual systems theory.



His core message in this piece is....

Finally, CEOs are still trying to position themselves as the middle ground between extremists on both sides, when the reality is that we have a basically moderate Democratic party confronting a radical Republican party that doesn't play by any of the normal rules. If you insist on thinking of senators Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren as somehow symmetrical figures, you're already so out of touch with political reality that there's no way you're going to have useful influence.

This is something I have to consider even though it really messes with my worldview.

edit on 26-10-2013 by FyreByrd because: (no reason given)

edit on 26-10-2013 by FyreByrd because: (no reason given)

Naturally anyone from his economic school is going to call the opposition "radical".

They see anyone wanting to cut spending ect as a mad man with a meat cleaver. They see a small knife as if it were a large ax.

reply to post by FyreByrd


I can't tell if krugman is insane, or is lying for some personal gain. Anyone that can do simple math, and understands this countries promised obligations and prospects for job growth cannot possibly say deficits do not matter genuinely. A deficit doesn't matter as long as the borrower is still able to eventually pay it back, but once the debt is large enough interest prevents that possibility.

I know people want to believe him that their is no problem, but all you have to do is look at the recent example of Greece. If krugman was correct, Greece would never have had a problem, their interest rates would not have risen and their economy would not have tanked.

Saying deficits don't matter really is the same as saying people don't care about having their money stolen. It's such a ridiculous argument only someone willfully ignorant can believe it.

The one thing I will agree with him about though is Paul Ryan. His supposed fixes for the debt are almost as laughable as just ignoring it all together. He is clearly only interested in political gain and not fixing the deficit. But for krugman to use him as the example of why the republicans are wrong about the deficit only shows how weak his argument is.