Krugman Ignores the Fact that Obama has Trashed the US economy and “Defines Prosperity Down”

Krugman Ignores the Fact that Obama has Trashed the US economy and “Defines Prosperity Down”

Abstract: Krugman of the NYT again howls for more taxes and spending because of the high unemployment levels that may remain up there for years. Cranking away on his little Hurdy-gurdy he plays his two note tune as usual: tax and spend. The promises to ‘fix’ the economy and find new jobs has rotted and takes on the curious countenance of a rotting Halloween pumpkin as it sags and flows. Thus Krugman has hatched a new candidate for the Pumpkinification of our so-called ruling elites in the best tradition of a financial rewriting of Apocolocyntosis. There is nary a hint of some new nuance or even mundane new information in this mess. Krugman croaks like a broken 8-track tape recycling an old song from the very bottom of the Hit Parade.

Propaganda experts generally launch off their maudlin sagas and assorted shuffling with some ugly but true facts and then intercalate some stale dogma and mix this in with the “new” evidence as the obvious solution to the current crises. The assembly of propaganda pieces and other blends of disinformation are designed to set up some cartoon characters that wander about in the social arenas while holding back their real intent and that is to advise all that your government can buy prosperity with higher taxes and more spending. This is a circular essay that springs forth with bell ringing and adulations from any and all known works from this author today. The bankrupt New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers -- has synthesized many heroic and phenomenal accomplishments with sophisticated propaganda exercises in similar circumstances but with a necessary due diligence to carefully avoid their earlier mistakes in journalism and thinking. This time, Krugman honks and wheezes but cannot escape previous predictions and incantations about our economy. The elites failed.

He begins:

“I’m starting to have a sick feeling about prospects for American workers — but not, or not entirely, for the reasons you might think.

Yes, growth is slowing, and the odds are that unemployment will rise, not fall, in the months ahead. That’s bad. But what’s worse is the growing evidence that our governing elite just doesn’t care — that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal.” --Defining Prosperity Down By Op-Ed Columnist Paul Krugman
Published: August 1, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

So, the maudlin essay on inattentive government blossoms into a soggy intermezzo with the implied condition that our governing elite must tax and spend more on our behalf. There has never been an alternate ending to this form of propaganda from our Nobel Laureate in his last 600 op-eds in this paper.

To read on, we must endure this:

“And I worry that those in power, rather than taking responsibility for job creation, will soon declare that high unemployment is “structural,” a permanent part of the economic landscape — and that by condemning large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness, they’ll turn that excuse into dismal reality.

Not long ago, anyone predicting that one in six American workers would soon be unemployed or underemployed, and that the average unemployed worker would have been jobless for 35 weeks, would have been dismissed as outlandishly pessimistic — in part because if anything like that happened, policy makers would surely be pulling out all the stops on behalf of job creation.” --Defining Prosperity Down By Op-Ed Columnist Paul Krugman

What is missing from this Plebian plea bargain is the result of promises from the Democrats who assured us that “Obama had a plan to fix the economy” and that his Ivy League elites predicted success instead of what we now get:

We have only to bring up former predictions like this to place on this forum and ask what happened to them:

“President Barack Obama promised Monday to deliver more than 600,000 jobs through his $787 billion stimulus plan this summer, with federal agencies pumping billions into public works projects, schools and summer youth programs.

The administration's predictions that unemployment would rise no higher than 8 percent already have been shattered, leaving Obama's advisers to caution that job growth takes time, even as recovery spending intensifies.”-- Obama Promises More than 600,000 Stimulus Jobs By: AP |08 Jun 2009. [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

From Aug 9, 2009
“I’m still very worried about the economy. There’s still, I fear, a substantial chance that unemployment will remain high for a very long time. But we appear to have averted the worst: utter catastrophe no longer seems likely.
And Big Government, run by people who understand its virtues, is the reason why.” -- Averting the Worst By Paul Krugman August 9, 2009
Hooey. Compare this “still very worried “ comment to his comment above about “Not long ago, anyone predicting that one in six American workers would soon be unemployed or underemployed, …” and then, read this from some ‘expert’ from academia in the Obama advisory camp:

History flashback: The Christine Romer Prophecy:

“…, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.” --CNSNews.com Monday, July 06, 2009

The Christine Romer Un-Prophecy: Did Romer recant?

“Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009,” Romer said. “By mid-2010, fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to growth.” — Christine Romer Oct. 22

Krugman backpedals on his little tricycle as he falls back on the plea that “we didn’t do enough” and need to tax and spend more. There is absolutely nothing of substance in this advice dating back to the beginning of the Obama Outrage when he knew how to fix the economy.

Proven to be a failure by his own allies, Krugman surges forward in the fevered and never-ending quest for bigger and bigger government:

“We’re told that we can’t afford to help the unemployed — that we must get budget deficits down immediately or the “bond vigilantes” will send U.S. borrowing costs sky-high. Some of us have tried to point out that those bond vigilantes are, as far as anyone can tell, figments of the deficit hawks’ imagination — far from fleeing U.S. debt, investors have been buying it eagerly, driving interest rates to historic lows. But the fearmongers are unmoved: fighting deficits, they insist, must take priority over everything else — everything else, that is, except tax cuts for the rich, which must be extended, no matter how much red ink they create.” --Defining Prosperity Down By Op-Ed Columnist Paul Krugman

Since the ‘rich’ provide new jobs and new businesses they must denied any tax breaks at all costs. The government will then go dumpster diving for ‘green jobs’ or other pet projects authorized by their contributors. People who buy US T-bonds for 30 years at 4% are called idiots in this economy and this will stop. The only reason we are not inflating is that we are still deflating from the crash of the housing markets and the phony real estate bubble has only half burst as yet. What has the stimulus brought us except more debt? What has all this debt gone for if not jobs?? This administration is packed with lunatics and drug-crazed academics who only understand how to direct criticism and how to smoke marijuana. If you want to see how we will turn out with much more of this phony spending I invite you to look at and listen to the Californians and similarly hopeless ‘elites’ from New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland, along with several other tottering states, as they are all in deep financial trouble and are so frantic that they will do odd things like try to peddle and tax dope at high tax rates to get some cash. Greece, Spain and Ireland are in the same shape in the EU. Most of the EU is recovering from the socialist disease that infects Krugman and some are finding ways to ease the debt and cut down on deficit spending. Keynes has been properly disgraced. Krugman is disgraced by this result from his fellow elites.

Now, Krugman offers some prophecy:

“What lies down this path? Here’s what I consider all too likely: Two years from now unemployment will still be extremely high, quite possibly higher than it is now. But instead of taking responsibility for fixing the situation, politicians and Fed officials alike will declare that high unemployment is structural, beyond their control. And as I said, over time these excuses may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the long-term unemployed lose their skills and their connections with the work force, and become unemployable.

I’d like to imagine that public outrage will prevent this outcome. But while Americans are indeed angry, their anger is unfocused. And so I worry that our governing elite, which just isn’t all that into the unemployed, will allow the jobs slump to go on and on and on.” --Defining Prosperity Down By Op-Ed Columnist Paul Krugman

Their anger is slowly being focused upon our ugly and inefficient socialist government and their massive debt legacy. This focus may be applied at the polls in November.

rycK [a 5th generation Californian in exile]

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com