Most popular comment on Paul Krugman’s Op-Ed this morning:
I’m beginning to believe that George W Bush was the president the American people deserved. I can’t believe the take away from President Obama’s press conference was his comment about the idiocy in Cambridge. The American people’s brains have been turned to mush. Too much Fox News, American Idol, etc…has rendered people into easily duped dolts. We now have a chance to take a positive step towards fixing our Health Care embarrassment, and the debate is off the charts ridiculous. In a simple nutshell: do you want to keep being screwed by the Corporate Health Insurance Companies, or do you want to move towards fair, moral, universally accessible Health Care. It’s that simple.
Thank you Mark C. from San Francisco.
You are currently browsing articles tagged paul krugman.
Here are the best arguments for Single Payer Health Insurance I’ve come across yet:
We’re lucky we have that great journalist, Bill Moyers, around. Here he’s interviewing two strong advocates of Single Payer, David Himmelstein, MD, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Sidney Wolfe, MD, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.
What chance in Hell does Single Payer have in this country?
I’ll answer my own question. It has NO CHANCE.
So what do we do? Stand with Dr. Dean and go all out for the Public Option. He explains this in the following:
This piece by Bernie Horn convinced me that Single Payer can’t work politically, and that our only option is the Public Option.
Right now, members of congress, including Olympia Snowe in the Senate are watering down the Public Option so that it will end up not being a Public Option. Read Paul Krugman on the Snowe “trigger”.
That’s why we’ve got to Stand with Dr. Dean. Sign his petition!
Tags: Bernie Horn, bill moyers, david himmelstein, Dr. Dean, health research group, national health program, Olympia Snowe, paul krugman, public citizen, public option, sidney wolfe, single payer, Snowe trigger
Nobel prize winner in economics, Paul Krugman, has another good Op-Ed in the NYT this morning. I’ve been reading the comments to his article and found one I think is spot on and one-ups Paul. Here it is:
Dr. Krugman, without digging through dozens of books and articles, and hundreds of email newsletters and posts, I can’t say exactly how many I’ve read predicting both the current American disaster and explicating the stupid and selfish policies of the I.M.F., World Bank, and our Fed and financial system. America was drunk on power and self-satisfaction. Mr. Bush and his “team” — if that’s what we could call an emaciated shell of neocons and the likes of Greenspan and Paulson — were not borrowing from Peter to pay Paul but robbing both to support their bogus wars and pie-in-the-sky budgets. They deliberately pumped up the price of real-estate and allowed a reverse salami-tactic to add small slices of greed until finally the whole cancerous mess exploded in our and the world’s face.
Of course every word you write tonight makes sense, but I didn’t see the worst miscreants even mentioned. Yes, Rubin, Greenspan, and Summers were there about two-thirds of the way through the build-up of the house of cards, which began during Reagan’s first year in office. And, yes, they were blind to the disaster they were pushing further down the path. Mr. Clinton, who was so compromised after the CIA/Contra operation in Arkansas, was further weakened by scandal and Newt Gingrich, such that he stopped being a Democrat and rolled over to be an Eisenhower Republican (lite). Then along came liar George Bush, 9/11 (which somehow happened despite numerous warnings), the use of 9/11 as a pretext for what Mr. Bush had in mind all along, and the American people fat-dumb-and-happy from all the prosperity of the exploding housing market, which turned perhaps half the homes in the country into giant ATMs.
It is no wonder that Europeans don’t respect us, that U.S. G-20 efforts will be met with resistance. The one thing you say tonight with which I disagree is: “even when — as in this case — the Americans are right.” Perhaps from a purely economic perspective we’re more right than the Europeans, which is to say that they should make stronger stimulus efforts. Certainly you’re correct in saying that the whole world needs to pull together, especially the G-20 nations. But if we are deranged enough to think we can continue to wage war (or peace, or whatever today’s euphemism is) in Iraq and Afghanistan, maintain some 800 military bases around the world, be the de facto world cop, and march relentlessly ahead with our military budget, why would Europeans and others respect us? If we can’t simply pass a few laws about automobile mileage and emission standards and then enforce them, why would Europeans think we could lead the world economy? If we can’t figure out a way to shift to an economy based more on production and less on consumption — especially of foreign-made goods, again we can see why others are cynical about the U.S.’s ability to lead.
The ultimately ugly truth is that we are too hypocritical as a nation to be taken seriously by others. If a child’s parents are on drugs, they’d best not lecture the child about not using drugs.
— Butler Crittenden, San Francisco, CA
Tags: Butler Crittenden, Europeans, financial system, G-20, military bases, NYT, paul krugman, stimulus
Many argue that it was really World War II that got us out of the great depression of the 1930’s. Our vast increase in military spending is what reduced the 16.9% unemployment of 1936 to the 4.7% unemployment of 1942, they say.
So, Obama’s plan may not be up to snuff, may not be the fiscal equivalent of war. Paul Krugman is saying it’s only about one-third of what is needed. John Judis suggests an additional $70 billion in high-speed rail plus a new international monetary system.
Are these guys right? Or are our problems to be solved by tax breaks for the rich, Republican style? Me? I’ll take the former.
UPDATE: Obama in his press conference today said that if Paul Krugman is right, they’ll use his ideas, or at least evaluate them seriously. “No pride of authorship.”, said Obama.
Tags: great depression, high speed rail, international monetary system, john judis, military spending, paul krugman, unemployment, world war ii
Paul Krugman is back with a great op-ed in Monday morning’s NYT. Here’s the point of his piece, taken from the second paragraph:
But there’s a problem: conservative politicians, clinging to an out-of-date ideology — and, perhaps, betting (wrongly) that their constituents are relatively well positioned to ride out the storm — are standing in the way of action.
There are already a goodly number of comments on Paul’s piece. Here’s one comment that sums up the situation perfectly in my estimation:
As a historian, I am utterly shocked by the response to this economic crisis by Conservative Republicans in Washington and Chancellor Merkel’s response in Germany. What planet are these people on? Have they ever opened up a history book? I hate to say it but it almost seems as if these people have absolutely lost their minds. Here in the U.S., I do feel that these Republicans are simply trying to score political points with their out-of-date ideology by killing another powerful labor union. Meanwhile, the middle class continues to shrink at an alarming rate. Companies like the Big 3 and other major manufacturers provide this country with thousands and thousands of middle-class decent paying jobs. However, all I hear from Republicans at my university and everywhere else is that any intervention is “socialism” or “communism” or part of some internationalist conspiracy for one world government. The Red Scare is over people and McCarthy has long been dead. Why do we keep bringing back these McCarthyist rants during these times of crisis? The truth is these economic conservatives have absolutely no clue what it is like working in a factory and being on the bottom of the ladder, struggling to make ends meet every month. All they want to do is criticize workers for wanting to make a decent wage that actually keeps up with inflation. What is wrong with that? Of course, these Conservative Republicans would have no problem voting for a raise for themselves. But at the second a poor man comes to them for help or wanting health care, they stick their noses in the air. Mr. Krugman, I hate to say this but if something is not done soon with this economic situation, this country is going to fall apart beyond description. What will it take for these people to understand the situation? Do people literally have to be starving to death in the streets, fighting for food, jumping out of windows, killing themselves in their forclosed homes before they notice the problem? I mean come on: it came out the other day that we have been in a recession since December of 2007….it took them this long to notice and fess up? We need to start acting with depression economics now before it is too late. It is time for a Kenyesian revolution now more than ever. The solution is staring in the face of not just the United States but the entire international community as a whole. Why will they not accept that their completely free-market ideology has failed them?
— Matt, Ball State University
Right! Their completely free-market ideology has failed them! And us! Let’s take some action. But we’re still in that state of limbo until Bush finally goes. 
Tags: chancellor merkel, communism, conservative republicans, economic conservatives, economic crisis, free-market ideology, limbo, middle class, NYT, paul krugman, socialism
Can it be that the world as we know it may be coming to an end? Naw, it can’t be that bad, can it? Well, I’ve been cramming as much of this global financial predicament as I can stand into my head the last couple days, between going about my daily chores and ablutions. And, as one might say, this is serious shit. Paul Krugman’s blogs have been my main starting points, but also I watched online Bill Moyers’ interview of George Soros, the man who predicted this perilous predicament a number of months ago. George states that we have wasted valuable time and are still behind the curve but may be lucky. Nothing less than a coordinated intervention by all the countries into their banking systems to supply vast sums of equity, plus huge economic stimulus packages and bailouts for homeowners, will work. Or at least it seems so. Tomorrow, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, may be the D-Day, D for decision. Will it work? We’ll have to see.
Update Oct. 12: Well, here it is Oct. 12, Sunday, and it looks like the Europeans at least are starting to get their acts together. We’ll see about the U.S.of A. Paul Krugman still has doubts about our commitments, but thankfully our markets are closed tomorrow, the day Columbus discovered America, or so the story goes…… Oh, and here’s another great source of info on the current situation.
Tags: bailout, banking systems, bill moyers, crises, economic stimulus, george soros, paul krugman
Nobody expects the
Spanish Inquisition!!!
So saeth Monty Python!
Paul Krugman, the noted economist, sees a lead in with our economy here:
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Fear and negative equity … The two things we have to fear are fear itself and negative equity, and the depleted capital of financial institutions … Amongst the things we have to fear are fear itself, negative equity, and the depleted capital of financial institutions.
Tags: economist, financial institutions, Monty Python, negative equity, paul krugman, spanish inquisition
Recent Comments