62 Replies to “Let Me Fix That Headline For You”

  5. Maybe journalists are not the most qualified people to decide who are the most qualified economists.

  6. Seriously, though, who gives a flying?
    The US economy is toast for the next decade or so anyway – you could put a 1970’s vintage Milton Friedman in the post and it wouldn’t make a flyspeck’s worth of difference…

  7. Excellent choice of picture, Kate, that one has haunted me for years. And it suits this situation exactly. Meanwhile the Sunday news shows continue on with talk of strategy and other such delightful insider topics. I keep thinking, who the hell cares?

  8. – Proving once again there is a genetic defect in the left where economics, math and truth are concerned.
    You wouldn’t want to look for an Austrian school solution to repetative Keynesian failure would you? Nawwww too much like math, and real world economics.

  10. uh what? where does he get the less than 1% number? well, the CEPR article obviously but if you follow the links to the CBO report the net interest number is 1.4% of GDP and expected to grow at least 1% in 10 years. They also say that interest rates and swing unexpectedly and cause significant divergences from their projections. I’m probably missing something but I don’t know where that “less than 1%” comes from. :\

  12. Krugman as Treasury Secretary = sell your shares in Caterpillar. Because he’ll insist the mass graves be dug by hand – creates more jobs that way.

  13. Krugman…an award winning….nuff said rite there, even Obumbles and Arfart were “award” winners
    this fool chastizes the “wall streeters” for opposing austerity measures,and yet Obumbles hasn’t sent one of these crooks to jail to date

  14. On Saturday’s Roy Green Show, an American economist predicted that ratings agencies will downgrade America’s credit rating 2 – 3 times this year. Only then, he added, will this wake up the majority of the American people to the dangerous situation they’re in and make them really angry.
    I hope this fellow is correct. I’m skeptical though.

  15. Well, you have to give Weisbrot credit. Krugman certainly has the intellect and integrity to blend seamlessly into the Obama Administration. Bwahaha!

  16. The Guardian article and Krugman, like all analyses from the left, focuses only on consumption. Krugman ignores the fact that an economy is triadic; Krugman focuses only on the final phase: Consumption. But how do you get the funds to provide for consumer needs?
    An econmoy isn’t just about enabling Consumption, which the Obama Gang does by taxing away the Investment and Production capacities of the citizens. After all, if you reduce the nation’s capacity to produce wealth, well, after a while, there’s nothing to tax.
    So is it wise to do what Obama does? Do you print money? Do you borrow more and more?
    Or do you acknowledge that a wise government must enable the production, not simply consumption, of wealth. That means reducing taxes and reducing govt spending.
    In another leftist newspaper, the NYT, Friedman has a column chastizing both Obama and the GOP for ignoring the realities of our world. He writes:
    “What world are we living in? It’s a world in which we face three major challenges: responding to the merger of globalization and the information technology revolution, which is changing every job and workplace; dealing with our mounting debt and entitlement burdens, driven by steadily rising health care costs and unsustainable defined benefits; and, finally, developing energy sources that can grow the world economy without tipping it into disruptive climate change.”
    And he writes that the GOP ought to provide some answers: “Given this world, here are the specific tax reforms, spending cuts, investments and policy innovations we need to grow our middle class, sustain our retirees and shrink inequality.”
    What does Krugman advise? More taxes, more borrowing. Why?

  19. I think maybe you all missed the most important point which is that Danny Glover thinks its a good idea. Mr. Glover was an early supporter of John Edwards and is friends with Hugo Chavez, so he is obviously an extremely good judge of people!

  21. A country’s overall productivity is the key to a sustainable economy and lifestyles.
    The Krugman types think that printing money and spreading it around so people can consume is the key to economic activity and great lifestyles.
    But then, of course these types would think that way – how could they ever know what real productivity actually is? What is it that have most of them have ever produced in their lives? Words? yes. Get elected? yes. Inch columns? yes. Talking heads? yes. Tenured ideas? yes.
    Roads? no. Wheat? no. Hydro transmission lines? no. Medicine? no. Lumber? no.

  22. ET, not only do statists like the Dems focus on the objective – consumption, but they are not even honest about that because they only care about government, not private, consumption. Where is the stimulus to help start-up businesses for instance? No they seek to “invest” in training and who knows what else, rather than put any money in the hands of the evil small business owners who actually create the jobs and pay the bills. That’s code for paying off their constituencies (the 47%?) including their political allies such as trade unions. Apparently it would be better to bleed the “rich” further with income and job killing payroll taxes. Hint: don’t count on the rich to pay the extra taxes out of their savings, won’t happen folks, so tax revenues will likely fall, as happened when Britain tried this approach recently.
    I agree the 1% debt interest/GDP claim is unsubstantiated. Frankly even if one looks at this in comparitive terms only, the picture is not good at all. Interest rates are at/near their lowest and sure to rise going forward, so it only stands to reason “net” interest payment are an all time low. Comparing today to the US coming out of WWII is just as specious. America had already borrowed a lot of money and the greatly reduced this debt as she went into the post war boom. Now the US is maxed out on debt with her capacity to repay dwindling as retiring/sick boomers drive down productivity, not strengthening as happened as the boomers were born and mass consumption took hold.
    Throwing a shiny fact hoping you can snow people is trademark of the radical and the cited article is full of similar fallacies. Furthermore Krugman for Treasury is a bad idea period; he is simply a bad economist who misunderstands Keynes and uses junk analysis to make his case. Any read of his work, coupled with even introductory economics course, quickly reveals gibberish, rife with prejudiced ideas about business and wealth accumulation. How he ever won an economics Nobel prize amazes me, though they also gave it to Harry Markowsky for stating the obvious.
    I can’t see Obama going with this guy, but then again in their mandarin world where they are all wise who built everything and the actual wealth generators are lucky and greedy and apparently lazy, anything could happen. If it did it would signal a serious credibility problem for the US economy v.v. the rest of the world, though surely Iran and N. Korea would applaud.

  23. Excellent idea. Krugman is the big fat mouthpiece of liberal morons, they’ve been in charge of the economy since Obama took over, so put their figurehead at the top to lead it into the future and let everyone see liberals wear it. At that point even the idiocracy couldn’t be stupid enough to believe the media.

  25. Krugman has the intellect and integrity to resist Wall Street’s calls for austerity
    I agree 100%; the difference is that I don’t think that the statement is a compliment.

  26. Captivating painting.
    All the comments from either side of the political spectrum argue on the premise that Obamba and his administration WANT to heal or grow the economy.
    I believe the whole premise is misdirection.
    Indeed they want power, control, and wealth – for themselves. Obamba has continually marketed “Change” for America; it was never intended to be good change or any benefit to any but his ideological brethren and financial cronies.
    Obamba’s tyrannical Executive Orders for Martial Law and well documented comments of breaking America’s traditional back should make it clear that tearing the economy apart and rebuilding from its ashes is the intent.
    Arguing about how or what Obamba should do to “fix” the economy misses the problem entirely.
    The painting is a great metaphor, because the mind’s eye can interpret what it wants to see based on your own bias:
    On one hand I see a “Dark Horse” heroic but suicidal racing to try and save the day from looming disaster further up the track. The other is wonton stupidity, even a sacrifice to pretend something is being done to avert disaster with the full knowledge that the horse is being sent by its master for destruction on the pretense that something is being done.

  27. Shamrock,
    In fairness to Krugman, his Nobel Prize was for his work in trade economics and not macroeconomics.

  28. M >
    “In fairness to Krugman, his Nobel Prize”
    Gawd I used to sort of like the guy. You mean he’s just another Affirmative Action loser with a Nobel Prize?
    Who did he have murder to get that?

  31. Shamrock, yes, nice post.
    And Knight99, I agree. It is astonishing that people believe that Obama wants what’s best for America and Americans, and just has a different strategy to achieve this goal. No.
    Do people understand that Obama’s need to destroy the power of others, ie, of middle class America, and render everyone dependent on Him is the basic causal force of his actions?
    Do they not realize that Obama cannot, ever, give up this agenda because it is a psychological need and not a rational, thought-out, policy?
    The unelected backroom gang who provide Obama with his policies are radical socialists, communists, who are opposed to private enterprise, capitalism, the free market and individual freedoms.
    Obama will present his agenda via emotional manipulation. He’s extremely skilled at this; it’s actually his only method of interaction with others.
    Do we not understand that Obama has, all his life, gotten his way by emotional manipulation? He’ll continue this manipulation this term, but, I suspect, in a more dictatorial fashion than last term.
    He’s been very successful with this manipulation. That includes BOTH elections to the presidency and his previous Senate election. It includes the Stimulus, ObamaCare, raising the debt ceiling, Fast and Furious, Benghazi. Raising taxes just recently. Everything.
    If he’s been stopped, as when Congress refused to pass his Cap and Trade, Obama simply ignores their existence, and achieves his agenda via some other means: the EPA in this instance, which is unelected and is smothering business with its regulations.
    So, what will be done?

  33. John Lewis, what do you mean, “FINALLY”? (*thwack* upside the head:) Colville’s work is powerful. Certain DOOM. That coincides with ‘bread and circuses’ imagery and the current distractions meant to keep people’s minds off political machinations leading to the global order being rammed down our throats.

  34. ET >
    I agree, where I do think we differ here on the matter is Obamba’s personal or personality relevance.
    I don’t disagree at all with your characterization of his personality or psychological makeup, only its relevance in the greater flow towards America’s subjugation by wealthy elitists. The political structure of control is only a means to an end for these people for their benefit in the long run. They are political atheists who would much rather be deified as Pharaoh God Kings if political schemes like communism wasn’t so much easier.
    “He didn’t build that” is projection on Obamba’s part, he was a “made man” from the beginning in a corrupt system working towards this goal. He fit in perfectly with decades of MSM manipulation of America’s public to actually want him for all the wrong reasons.
    This is corruption and collusion between many loosely and better organized societies of wealth, for the same reason’s they don’t want you as a member of their private golf clubs, or living in their communities, or having a firearms permit reserved only for the “right people”.

  35. What will be done? Not festivities. But manipulation.
    All that Obama is capable of is campaigning. Campaigning is primarily manipulation of others. Obama cannot sit down at a table and treat another person as an equal; he can’t debate and analyze an issue with someone else. Obama must dominate and control.
    So, Obama will, with regard to the debt ceiling, with regard to the economy, with regard to any policy..he will emotionally manipulate the people. He’ll campaign. That’s all he does. [Besides golf].
    What this does is to remove the issue from any rational, fact-filled debate within Congress. Obama moves it, by his campaigning, to the emotional, misinformed and corrupt decision-making process of the masses within a campaign. Where no-one can rebut him, no-one debates him, no-one provides facts to counter his propaganda.
    This tactic removes the issue from the control of Congress. It actually pits him directly against Congress (and Obama has nothing but disdain for Congress), for the elected in Congress don’t have the media time and spread of a president. They can’t readily counter his open lies, his contradictions, his appeals to pity.
    What should the GOP do? They ought to counter Obama’s rejection of Congress and use or misuse of population opinion by, now, starting a grassroots Town Hall organization. Where all policies and issues are discussed, with the facts, at the local level. Constant Town Halls led by the GOP.
    Remember, Obama will also be building up his base, who are the people dependent on Him and His Handouts. He’s going to increase this base by immigration amnesty; he’ll be expanding food stamps and welfare as well.

  36. Shamelessly cribbed from WilliamBanzai7 at Zerohedge:
    BANZAI7 NEWS—Irashaimasen!
    This is really thrilling for PhD morons, fiscal deadbeats, connoisseurs of fine sashimi and tuna noodle casseroles .
    An arcane idea that started on sushi chef blogs in the summer of 2011– that Tim Geithner should catch a trillion dollar tuna to avert the debt ceiling — is now seriously taking off following this week’s haul of a record breaking million dollar tuna.
    The premise of the idea is this: Although the Treasury, with the assistance of the Federal Reserve Bank, already just creates money out of thin air to pay its bills, there is a technicality in the law that says the Treasury has special discretion to can tunas of any denomination, and the thinking is that Tim Geithner could catch a record breaking giant tuna like the million dollar tuna caught just this past week, attach a price tag of one trillion dollars and walk it over to the Federal Reserve and deposit it in the Gold vault next to the Venezuelan bananas and German bratwursts.
    The first blog to really promote the idea was Master Chef Ushi o Kao’s (as in I grow cows) Monetaro Sushinomics.
    Business Outsider jumped on it soon thereafter, as did PhD sliced bullshit chef Paul Klugman.
    Of course, once the debt ceiling problem was miraculously solved by the clever creation of a debt politburo and fiscal cliff, people forgot about it.
    But there’s a new debt ceiling looming, and this time, LOTS more people are tired of using food stamps to purchase cheap sushi boxes at the supermarket.

  37. Knight99, I’m confused about your reference to ‘wealthy elitists’.
    If I understand you correctly, you put these ‘wealthy elitists’ as the key agents in the current US situation. I don’t see how Obama’s socialism and concomitant destruction of the wealth producing capacities of the US – helps these wealthy elitists.
    I DO see how the gang around Obama, that unelected gang, of such as Valerie Jarrett, Michelle, and his czars, can benefit. Their agenda is pure radical seminar room Marxist communism; it’s anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-freedom. Thus, with Obama as the upfront emotional manipulator, using his ‘race’, his megasmile, and his incredible capacity for forcing people to stop thinking and follow him – they can achieve their ideological goals.
    How on earth can the normal Democrat, who primarily IS a Democrat because of its ‘feel-good’ Be Kind To The Poor ideology, not see that such a perspective is totally different from the Obama Gang’s communism? How? Ah, that’s the skill of Obama’s rhetoric.
    Listen to what Obama said, just a day ago, about refusing to negotiate about the debt ceiling.
    “I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed. Let me repeat: We can’t not pay bills that we’ve already incurred.”
    Now wait a minute. Notice how Obama distances himself from these bills, which he would have had to sign. Notice how he pretends that he didn’t want them, didn’t campaign for them, didn’t get his minions to ensure they were passed – including the just passed pork-filled Sandy aid. That’s typical Obama rhetoric.
    So, Knight99, where we seem to differ, is that you seem to think that the current US political agenda is driven by ‘the wealthy elite’. I think it’s instead driven by a set of radical Marxist socialists who hang out with Obama, who is their upfront Big Guy.

  38. ET
    Not to be a negative nelly but how much reach would a GOP town hall really have? A GOP town hall will be filled with people who are already politically involved and for the most part are already ideologically aligned with the GOP. The people who need to be reached are the vast majority of people who care about politics for two months every four years.
    Whatever happens financially the democrats and their media minions will spin it so that republican intransigence is to blame. In fact, they’re still blaming Bush for the economic mess. Perhaps the best thing to do is for the republicans to withdraw completely and when this whole thing crumbles the ideology of the left is discredited. Well, partially anyways since old communism still holds so many people in its sway. Either that or find an equally cynical demagogue of our own and, like the left, march lockstep behind him.
    Knight 99
    “You mean he’s just another Affirmative Action loser with a Nobel Prize?”
    Pretty much. There’s a distinction between his and Obama’s anyways. Besides its entirely possible for him to have no idea what he’s talking about and have done work worthy of a Nobel prize.

  39. ET >
    “I think it’s instead driven by a set of radical Marxist socialists who hang out with Obama,”
    I see those same Marxist socialist as the useful idiots, some of whom may even receive a bone from time to time.
    Obamba is not “Stalin” he is the lackey laying the groundwork. I believe “Stalin” is quietly waiting in the wings, and Obamba will simply be dining well as a private multimillionaire in 4 years from now.
    “I don’t see how Obama’s socialism and concomitant destruction of the wealth producing capacities of the US – helps these wealthy elitists.” – ET
    China, India’s or Mexico’s sweatshops haven’t hurt the billionaires much in those counties.
    Again where I think we differ is on the scope of Obamba’s role. This is a global agenda, George Bush’s “a brand new idea…..” echoed by every western leader since its public announcement.
    Whose idea, where did it come from, do you recall the public consensus?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc7i0wCFf8g

  40. ‘Indeed they want power, control, and wealth – for themselves. Obamba has continually marketed “Change” for America; it was never intended to be good change or any benefit to any but his ideological brethren and financial cronies.
    Obamba’s tyrannical Executive Orders for Martial Law and well documented comments of breaking America’s traditional back should make it clear that tearing the economy apart and rebuilding from its ashes is the intent.
    Arguing about how or what Obamba should do to “fix” the economy misses the problem entirely.
    The painting is a great metaphor, because the mind’s eye can interpret what it wants to see based on your own bias:
    On one hand I see a “Dark Horse” heroic but suicidal racing to try and save the day from looming disaster further up the track. The other is wonton stupidity, even a sacrifice to pretend something is being done to avert disaster with the full knowledge that the horse is being sent by its master for destruction on the pretense that something is being done.’
    Brilliant comment and excellent analysis Knight 99. The picture captures the situation and forces the viewer to ask “Why?”. Only at SDA would such a timely metaphor appear.
    Ron Paul shredded Paul Krugman on day during the election campaign:
    PMhttp://www.valuewalk.com/2012/04/ron-paul-vs-paul-krugman-exciting-debate-on-video-with-transcript/

  41. “Saturn devouring his son” fits as well.
    This generation, feeding on the next..

  42. I love how the “powerful interests”, the “Wall Street and… media interests”, the “the loudest voices – backed by the biggest money”, the “too much money and power on the other side…” which make sanity and decency “impossible” are never specified and are always right-wing and neo-con. And I swear he mentioned Chuck Hagel just so he could type the words “pro-Israel lobby”. It’s an OCD symptom with these Guardian types.
    Oh well. I don’t see why the U.S. shouldn’t be at infinity debt, doubling every month. They can always print more money, and borrow more money. And has anyone looked into taxing the rich? I hear they’ve got lots of money. Gimme a Nobel Prize! A column, at least.
    (Did he really say “The renowned actor and human rights activist Danny Glover…”? Maybe I’m hallucinating.)

  43. M, no, I don’t think that Town Halls are just for political followers; they are for facts about current issues. And from the comments sections in various blogs, I think that a large section of a population IS interested in the political decisions of their government. I think that Town Halls or something similar are vital, for they insert what some call the ‘drip, drip’ method of information dissemination.
    The two months every four years is NOT for reasoning or information processing. ALL that can be done in this period is pure emotional propaganda. That’s not how a population should be informed. They should be informed via the constant ‘drip’ method.
    Knight 99. I disagree. I don’t see that Obama is someone else’s lackey. Who is your Stalin? Who is running this global agenda? I don’t see any of this. It’s a bit too much of a conspiracy theme for me.
    Jema54. Your two interpretations of the painting are outside of anything I can see! Where do you get the information that enables you to conclude that the horse is either racing to save the day, or is sent by its master? Who is its master?
    I simply see a horse facing a train; either the horse moves, which means that it is not mesmerized, or, it remains, mesmerized. That’s it.
    Knight99, as for a global agenda, I will only acknowledge that economic and informational globalism is a reality but this has nothing to do with any individual agenda. It’s due to informational networking which is global, to communication and transportation links which are global and to population increases. No individual is behind this complex network.

  44. And hey, if the GDP were $0, or maybe in the negative if such a thing is possible, then “net interest on the debt” could be 0% of GDP, which would be, like, the lowest ever!

  45. ET >
    “No individual is behind this complex network.”
    Again I agree, neither was it so for the British Empire, nor the Soviet Union.

  46. ET #2 >
    I have no idea who America’s future “Stalin” will be, my usage is metaphorical. The same goes for what tyrannical political shape will become of the US and indeed the globe.
    Where was communism before the rise of communists?
    Nowhere is the answer, it was a conception that eventually took form. I believe what is slowly and “Progressively” coming is a new conception that none of us are yet privy to.
    Today we get glimpses from the words of our leaders, and remember lessons from our past, not allot more than that, but we clearly see the public manipulation and the positioning of pieces on the field of battle.

  47. ET #3 >
    “Jema54. Your two interpretations of the painting are outside of anything I can see!”
    Actually Jema54 was complementing my interpretations of the painting. You need to read the comment in full to understand the intended point:
    “……..because the mind’s eye can interpret what it wants to see based on your own bias:” – K99
    Which is why you validated the point with your argument “…..outside of anything I can see – ET”.

  48. The fact that he mentioned Danny Glover as a “renowned” actor, sort of turns the piece into toilet paper.

  49. My impression of Krugman, the few times I’ve had the misfortune to read his articles, is that he’s an idiot. The fact that he has a Nobel prize is worrisome as it means that the ranks of economists are dominated by idiots.
    Nassim Taleb refers to Krugman as a “fragilista” economist in his book Antifragile and also accuses Krugman of being totally oblivious to black swan events. Taleb is not at all a fan of government debt and firmly in the camp that believes that government spending must be cut drastically as well as taxes if one is to increase wealth production. Having Krugman as treasury secretary would be an automatic guarantee of US financial collapse at some point in the future when the next black swan event hits the financial markets.
    As ET has noted, Krugman concentrates entirely on the consumption side of the equation by assuming that having the government print money will restart the economy. There is a lag period between people having increased demand for a product and restarting production in a factory that was closed because of the recession. People want things now and any of the money that was supposed to revitalize the US economy will be spent on cheap Chicom products and help their economy. Also, since no new new tangible wealth was created by expansion of the money supply, one gets inflation as there are many more dollars chasing after the same small number of physical goods. I view the price of gold as an index of inflation.
    Also, ultra low interest rates are a disincentive to save since, in an economy with a large amount of inflation, one is best to spend ones money immediately. No savings mean no investment in new production plants. The only beneficiary of low interest rates is the grossly indebted US federal government and, should world interest rates rise, then interest on the national debt would become one of the largest components of the federal budget.
    I suspect that we’re going to have to experience hyperinflation to eliminate the debt and the only people who will do well in this scenario are those who own tangible goods. Those with the bulk of their capital in investments will be totally wiped out. Maybe that’s what Obozo wants and then he can nationalize all property to complete the transition to the USSA.

  50. marc in calgary >
    “”Saturn devouring his son” fits as well.
    This generation, feeding on the next..”
    I like that!
    Your interpretation does fit well for those that care to view it that way.
    The whole point of the Obamba “rooms full of smoke filled mirrors” analogy.

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