I know that rightwing Republicans and their supporters have got the media genuflecting again to anything they make the message of the day, and too many of our fellow citizens are falling for it (just read the comments on this obscure little blog for how widespread this is).
But what does the economic expert who won the Nobel prize in Economics last year think about what's going on?
Read this and see.
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3 comments:
Donald Luskin best describes Krugman's abilities. It is shown below my comment.
Krugman ignores the fact that the proposed Stimulus Plan does not provided incentive for the private sector to invest, expand and hire. The US Corporate tax is the highest in the world after Japan. An elimination or a major cut would make the US more competitive with the rest of the world. The capital gains and dividend tax amount to, in many cases, a double taxation at the corporate and the personal level and it retards business exspantion and hiring. Krugman won the Nobel Prize good work done a long time ago before he became a Liberal Wacko.
Luskin
"The living Krugman’s rabidly liberal New York Times column has, for nine years now, traded on the dead Krugman’s reputation as an economist, a reputation that only will be burnished by the award of the Nobel Prize. Yet his column is pure politics, not economics. It is the equivalent of astronomers Mather and Smoot — the 2006 Nobelists in physics — writing on astrology.
This living Paul Krugman can’t be the same person as the dead economist. The dead economist wrote eloquently of the supreme importance of globalization and international trade as engines of prosperity. But the living public intellectual remains silent on these subjects when the Democratic party’s nominee for president threatens to abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
These days Krugman’s liberal agenda always takes precedence over economic principle. He has described himself as “an unabashed defender of the welfare state.” He has declared, “For me, Sweden of 1980 would be ideal.” He has called Barack Obama’s sweeping plan for socialized medicine “naïve” because it doesn’t contain enough mandates. He has said that “We should be getting 28% of GDP in [tax] revenue,” when the highest level ever collected, even in wartime, is less than 21 percent."
"…anyone who says we’re in a recession, or heading into one—especially the worst one since the Great Depression—is making up his own private definition of recession."
Donald Luskin
***September 2008***
Washington Post editorial
The Great Pres. Obama Victory.
It looks like Pres. Obama has a victory, but it certainly does not look like a bipartisan victory. Three Republicans out of both houses is a stretch to be called bipartisan. Pres. Obama owns this now. The Congressional Budget Office is less than impressed, saying it will actually retard GDP growth in the out years. No one actually knows. I suspect that if a strong recovery is not in place by the mid terms, the Democrats will pay the price, just as Bush justifiably paid a price for not vetoing out of control spending bills that Republicans put through.
Are the following provisions the cure for our current recession???
"Useful or wasteful?
Supporters say key provisions of the $825 billion economic stimulus bill will help create jobs and revive the U.S. economy, but critics see some of the spending as wasteful. Here's a sampling of how some of the money would be used:
$44 million for repairs at the Agriculture Department headquarters in Washington.
$200 million to rehabilitate the National Mall.
$360 million for new child care centers at military bases.
$1.8 billion to repair National Park Service facilities.
$276 million to update technology at the State Department.
$500 million for the Transportation Security Administration to install bomb detectors at airports.
$600 million for General Services Administration to replace older vehicles with alternative fuel vehicles.
$2.5 billion to upgrade low-income housing.
$400 million for NASA scientists to conduct climate change research.
$426 million to construct facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
$800 million to clean up Superfund sites.
$150 million for the Coast Guard to repair or remove bridges deemed a hazard to navigation.
$6.7 billion to renovate and improve energy efficiency at federal buildings.
$400 million to replace the Social Security Administration's 30-year-old National Computer Center."
Source: Chronicle staff report
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
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