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Monday, October 15, 2012

Krugman of the NYT fantasizes about Cantor, Hurricane Irene and other follies.


 

  October, 2011. 

Abstract:  Paul Krugman resorts to personal attacks and demonization of his political enemies by proxy in this new bewildering stew of innuendo, hokum and the conspicuous absence of tact or attention to historical particulars.  This outburst displays the desperation of the far left and their progressive handlers. The tautological central tendency to tax and spend is not lost or abridged in this piece.  He will call for more taxes and spending at any time to the roaring applause of his left-liberal followers. This is a two note song[1] that goes toot1 and culminates with a resounding  toot2 although the order may be reversed and any note may be stuck as many times as is necessary [retoots].

Citing the most important and influential tomes of propaganda ever to be set to print we cannot avoid comparing those works , of any particular political vector, to the contemporary pages of the near-bankrupt NYT. This ragzine—aka the Walter Duranty Papers[2][3]—is a turn-of-the-crank Marxian puppet stage where kinky intermezzos and grand opera ring until the wall paper curls.  We must always be alert for subterranean political designs and other odd bits of personal and toxic propaganda that are thoughtfully woven into the fabric of the average op-ed piece presented before us. As is tautologically universal in the Paul Krugman essays[4], his propaganda pieces frequently begin with a demonic historical character that is being used to characterize his enemy of the moment. The target today, perpetually and always is to attack any person or idea that might deter our phony Nanny State government from raising taxes and spending more to bloat our already cancerous government. The inefficiency of the government and its terminal debt load are not an issue. Spend, spend and spend.The banter and hokum in this op-ed is a tired retreading of the old progressive tyre for power and money by demonizing, in this particular episode,  Eric Cantor, a patriot who stands firm in his insistence that the Obama Administration is a total social and fiscal horror show. The rest of us know this is just progressive politics in its usual rancid and infective format. Lurking between the lines of this screed with the hidden agenda being the usual tautological quest for more taxes, higher spending and bigger government this krugmanical piece is as stale as they come.

How to best read my blogs:
[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]
He begins:

““Have you left no sense of decency?” That’s the question Joseph Welch famously asked Joseph McCarthy, as the red-baiting demagogue tried to ruin yet another innocent citizen. And these days, it’s the question I find myself wanting to ask Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who has done more than anyone else to make policy blackmail — using innocent Americans as hostages — standard operating procedure for the G.O.P.”[5]-- Eric and Irene By PAUL KRUGMAN OP-ED COLUMNIST Published: September 1, 201 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

The chief difficulty here is the unreasonable comparison between Canter and Senator McCarthy. Much of this smear of Joe McCarthy has been examined and debunked by several sources: Wes Vernon[6] analyzed the history for the movie about Edward R. Murrow to answer the hype and distortions in "Good Night and Good Luck". A more detailed analysis is book Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans.[7] I have some blogs on this topic as well. [8],[9] The facts are that Joe McCarthy was attacked because of his attacks on Communists that infested the FDR, Truman and Eisenhower administrations. A phony playing record was even shown in the halls of Congress that purported to have the infamous McCarthy speech in Wheeling WV and was later found to be a blank from a confession under oath at some Congressional hearing. McCarthy’s personal financial accounts were published in the Congressional Record in a frantic and violent smear so as to keep some loyal Commies in their cushy government jobs, mostly in the State Department.

The basis of this rant:

A few weeks ago, Mr. Cantor was the hard man in the confrontation over the debt ceiling; he was willing to endanger America’s financial credibility, putting our whole economy at risk, in order to extract budget concessions from President Obama. Now he’s doing it again, this time over disaster relief, making headlines by insisting that any federal aid to the victims of Hurricane Irene be offset by cuts in other spending. In effect, he is threatening to take Irene’s victims hostage.” - Eric and Irene By PAUL KRUGMAN

This part is reeking with poison of the sort that Locusta[10] used on her political enemies. These accusations are merely infantile retorts to Cantor and others who think these progressives are bankrupting American and saddling her with insurmountable debt all aimed at our defaults so the progressives can announce that ‘capitalism has failed.’ Obama and his phony stimuli have failed. Spend spend spend. We already have a disaster as our economy is collapsing and our currency is going to be debased one way or the other and inflation[11] is the major avenue. There is no evidence that the stimuli to the states have done anything as yet. Cash for clunkers[12], [$24,000 spent per car at a sales level of $35,000 or less], shovel-ready projects that never started, mortgage ‘adjustments’ for the ‘poor’ were tried then the recidivism rates hit 70%[13] are examples of this stimulus joke.  This folly and other phony measures have done nothing but waste federal funds and plunged us further into debt. The call for fiscal responsibility in these two states [CA and NY] is like whistling in the forest for a lobster and champagne dinner to suddenly appear on an old stump along with some mariachi music and a belly dancer for entertainment.[14]

Picking at nits:

Mr. Cantor’s critics have been quick to accuse him of hypocrisy, and with good reason. After all, he and his Republican colleagues showed no comparable interest in paying for the Bush administration’s huge unfunded initiatives. In particular, they did nothing to offset the cost of the Iraq war, which now stands at $800 billion and counting. - Eric and Irene By PAUL KRUGMAN

This is revolting. Obama can stop those wars at any time but now sends 2000 Marines to Libya. Where is the acknowledgement that those Ponzi schemes Social Security and Medicate have broken the bank. SS has a 15.2 trillion dollar debt liability and Medicare has a mere 80.03 trillion dollar load. Not to mention that Obama wanted to spend 9l trillion more and Krugman pasted this up as small using cherry-picked numbers from Alice in Wonderland.

What you have to bear in mind is that the economy — and hence the federal tax base — is enormous, too. Right now GDP is around $14 trillion. If economic growth averages 2.5% a year, which has been the norm, and inflation is 2% a year, which is the target (and which the bond market seems to believe), GDP will be around $22 trillion a decade from now. So we’re talking about adding debt that’s equal to around 40% of GDP.” - Eric and Irene By PAUL KRUGMAN
What you have to bear in mind is that the economy — and hence the federal tax base — is enormous, too. Right now GDP is around $14 trillion. If economic growth averages 2.5% a year, which has been the norm, and inflation is 2% a year, which is the target (and which the bond market seems to believe), GDP will be around $22 trillion a decade from now. So we’re talking about adding debt that’s equal to around 40% of GDP.

Right now, federal debt is about 50% of GDP. So even if we do run these deficits, federal debt as a share of GDP will be substantially less than it was at the end of World War II. It will also be substantially less than, say, debt in several European countries in the mid to late 1990s. (There are some technical issues in comparing these various numbers — gross debt versus net (mainly about Social Security) and overall government debt versus federal, but they don’t change the basic picture.)[15] - How big is $9 trillion? By PAUL KRUGMAN

And, yes, I mean one of our parties. There are plenty of bad things to be said about the Democrats, who have their fair share of cynics and careerists. There may even be Democrats in Congress who would be as willing as Mr. Cantor to advance their goals through sabotage and blackmail (although I can’t think of any). But, if they exist, they aren’t in important leadership positions. Mr. Cantor is. And that should worry anyone who cares about our nation’s future.” - Eric and Irene By PAUL KRUGMAN

No comments on this massive debt and ultimate US default? No! Just keep spending so the progressives can stay in power.

rycK [a 5th generation Californian in exile]
Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com


[1] Krugman Exhausts His Vocabulary by Monotonously Reciting the  Only Two Words He Understands In Economics: Tax And Spend. Let’s Tax the Stock Markets!!

“Abstract: Paul Krugman is a two-toot political advocate whose machinations are limited to only two choices: whether to tax [toot 1 if you please] and spend [toot 2] or whether to spend and tax later [reversed retoots]. That is his dilemma.  Which comes first—or does it matter-- to a socialist?”
[3] In honor of that celebrated Communist stooge and liar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the NYT. The color RED is used in my essays in honor of Walter Duranty, a saint, if there could be one, in the Marxist Archives of Honor.

He said that these people had to be "liquidated or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass". Duranty claimed that the Siberian labor camps were a means of giving individuals a chance to rejoin Soviet society but also said that for those who could not accept the system, "the final fate of such enemies is death." Duranty, though describing the system as cruel, says he has "no brief for or against it, nor any purpose save to try to tell the truth". He ends the article with the claim that the brutal collectivization campaign which led to the famine was motivated by the "hope or promise of a subsequent raising up" of Asian-minded masses in the Soviet Union which only history could judge.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

[4] Krugman Searches for His Own Truth in an Irish Mirror. He Reflects upon the Mirror and Finds Himself as Originator of the Eternal Solution. Tax and Spend.

[5] Eric and Irene By PAUL KRUGMAN OP-ED COLUMNIST

[6] Murrow, McCarthy, and enduring myths--Part 1 http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/051106
Murrow, McCarthy, and enduring myths--Part 2 http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/051113

[7] Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies by M. Stanton Evans Crown Forum, November 6, 2007.

[8] The Universality of McCarthyism and the Political Diodic Effect.
Posted by rycK on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 1:54:55 PM

[10] Locusta was a Roman serial killer during the 1st century AD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locusta

[12] Imaginary Numbers in the Starry Skies and the Quest for a Crystal Ball: Our Government Announces Job Creation Success with their Stimulus Program!


[13]HSA is showing high redefault rates on the early offerings,” FHFA director James Lockhart noted in a Congressional report this week. “Performance on the February through April offerings shows a redefault [or recidivism] rate of almost 70%, which calls into question the program’s assumptions that borrowers have the capacity to make payments going forward.”” -- Fannie Program Sees 70% Recidivism By Diana Golobay May 22, 2009. Fannie Program Sees 70% Recidivism By Diana Golobay May 22, 2009. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fannie6-2009nov06,0,4259740.story?track=rss

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