Mr. Krugman's really fond of little thought experiments, in fact he's gone almost as far to say economics is nothing more, and he'd be right about that. So, let me give you a little tale on how Paul's financial reform advocacy will go:
First few columns: "These bankers are greedy bastards and Wall Street really needs to be fundamentally changed."
Next few columns: "We really need this, this, and this. It's imperative, to do anything else would be a sham on the American people and destructive to the American economy."
Columns once the bill is pretty much intact: "All this is not nearly enough, they didn't do anything, but there's still time to make a couple good changes."
Columns once it's clear even to Mr. Krugman the Democrats are in the tank for Wall Street and nothing good is going to come of it: "Well, this isn't a great bill, but we need to hold our nose and vote for it, to do nothing will be fatal for November."
Column when bill is passed: "This is historic, the Democrats are just great, we can improve it in the future."
OK, so maybe in the past when I've labeled Mr. Krugman a hack, I was a little hard, maybe in the end he's just a good Democrat. After all, there have been no greater advocates of global corporatization and "free trade" than Mr. Krugman and much of the Democratic party. So, maybe the most disconcerting recent babble to emerge from the Nobel Laureate is his advocacy of a 25% "surcharge" on goods imported from China -- the Krugman Tariff. However, Mr. Krugman won't call it a tariff because that flies directly in the face of everything he's been advocating for the past three decades, getting him his prestigious perch at the NYT. I won't say his Nobel, that was for hounding W.
Now, I'd like to direct you to a scathing, sniveling little review, Krugman wrote fifteen years ago on Bill Greider's most excellent "One World Ready or Not". Greider's book documents the ravaging of the American middle-class caused by the processes of corporate globalization. Krugman counters with a ludicrous little tale about hot dogs, and then proceeds to defend it pushing all the pop-economic theory of the day, by so doing, an economist was bestowed with money and pats on the head from the mega-corporate boardrooms, you know, like the money Paul was paid working for Enron. According to the Nobel Laureate, replacing good paying steel jobs with McDonald's jobs was just great. Now today, fifteen years later, Mr. Krugman's contradicting what he's been saying his entire career, while Greider, no back page of the NYT for him, was right along.
Mr. Krugman represents the most serious problem this republic currently faces, power has lost all accountability. From the top of government, to media, to finance, to our large corporations, we've seen spectacular failure, and no one held accountable. It's a lot bigger problem than the fact Paul Krugman is really a very silly man. Instead of reading Krugman, try Greider's Come Home America, it has some actual thought about our predicaments.
I wish writers would quit referring people like this as "Nobel Laureates". They are not. There is no Nobel Prize in economics. There is only the "Nobel Memorial Prize" awarded by the the banking system in Sweden. Call it anything else. How about the "Fantasy pie in the Sky Laureate" or the "No relationship to Reality Laureate"
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to Paul Krugman's book review from 15 years ago. It was interesting in a way your column is not.
ReplyDeleteKrugman's review oozes condescension. He definitely seems impressed with his little thought games, and is supremely confident that the loss of the US manufacturing base is no big deal (it will never be Krugman who is dislocated and loses half his income due to the marvels of globalization and the wonders of a service sector job). Joe, you nailed Krugman to the wall with this pithy little post. Thank you as I used to listen to him on occasion, though his answers always seem too pat, and now I know why. He's just another tool for the big D democrats and their wall street agenda. Now, I'm not saying Grieder is exactly correct in everything he says, but he definitely gives more care to the people of this country than smug Krugman.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Greider the theoretician who stated in the 70's that men inherently are hardwired to not want their women to work outside of the home, to actually contribute monetarily to the household? Where is that man and how can I be introduced to him? Bloviator.
ReplyDeletethanks steve for correction, there really shouldnt be a Nobel for economics at all.
ReplyDeleteno dimmy, not him, but nice slander of someone you don't have a clue about
dimmy,
ReplyDeleteMaybe you were thinking of George Gilder? He said, among other things, that women are the key civilizing factor for young men. Was true for me.
As a former health insurance exec and current advocate for single payer, I can assure you that Krugman never really understood the healthcare issue. The math of economics is not the math of insurance, and of course there all of the operational complexities that only an insider could be aware of. As such, I expected Krugman to fold at the end. He simply could not have known enough not to fold.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, that makes your case here rather weak. Mind you, I'm not saying you are wrong; merely that healthcare was a bad issue to choose as the cornerstone of your argument.
I've been banging on for the last 2 years about how Krugman (who I've been reading since 1999) had been such an utter, naive shill for NAFTA and free global trade until it eviscerated the USA (and other nations) economies. Then he fell aaawfully silent on the whole issue after 2006. He's an economic Boy Scout. Full of good intentions but without the tools to fix the messes he helped create.
ReplyDeleteBenedict wasn't talking about health care, but about financial reform, watch
ReplyDeleteDaro:
ReplyDeleteHe suffers from the same thing as all economists do(including the dreaded Uncle Milty). In the real world, people are irrational. So that screws a lot of assumptions up. And yes, they all live in a kind of bubble, unaware of what the policies they advocate(Free trade for one) might actually do in the real world.
In Krugman's defense, I have never noticed him claiming to be infallible. I'm a scientist, so making a decent argument in support of something that turns out to be wrong isn't a sin in my book.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, there is actually a much stronger defense. Reality is complicated and people with a clue don't tend advocate for absolute or extreme positions. For example, it is entirely possible to argue for economic liberalization in the 80s or early 90s and more regulation today without even changing your position.
Benedict, that was a clever distraction.
ReplyDeleteKrugman remains a naif with a cool job. "Economics" remains, in America, largely an exercise in apologizing for consumerism and finance capitalism.
As an insurance lawyer with experience in insurance insolvency across all lines, and coverage litigation across all lines, I can say without reservation that Paul Krugman doesn't know his arse from a whale's blowhole, no matter whether the issue is health care in general, health benefits analogs to insurance, or pure health coverage.
And it would appear that Benedict isn't much better off, despite his claim to health care administration. Maybe Benedict was in the TPA end of things, where all the "administrator" does is push paper?