Krugman of the NYT Lets Spend Some More!!

From 1.5.2009

Krugman of the NYT Lets Spend Some More!!

The New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers [1] has an all-encompassing and circuitous track record of apologizing for any form of big government as long as  it involves huge spending and high taxes. Today, the Times’ famous noneconomics economist Paul Krugman grinds on with his unbridled respect for John Maynard Keynes, trumpeting a plan for more government and printing money and astronomical deficits.

In its twice weekly turn of the leftist canonical crank, their igNoble Leechette[2][3][4], blessed with insights and the arcane ability to divine the particulars of Depression government policies, will now recite for us the only words that matter to a leftist politician: Tax and Spend.

The rest of this article is hopeless stuffed to the gunwales with mind-numbing tautological fluff, but it may have some interesting twinks[5] and turns that might amuse us.  Here is what we look for in Keynesian Stooge: [1] a reduction in interest rates and [2] Government investment in infrastructure.[6]

To wit:

““If we don’t act swiftly and boldly,” declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, “we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.” If you ask me, he was understating the case.”[7]-- Fighting Off Depression By Paul Krugman Op-Ed Columnist Published: January 4, 2009 . [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

Where is the ‘patriotic part’ of this mindless plea? Where is the Plugs the Buffoon on this matter?

“"You got it.  It’s time to be patriotic, Kate.  Time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help America out of the rut, and the way to do that is they’re still gonna pay less taxes than they did under Reagan."—Joe Biden, plagiarist and a person who cheated his way through Law School at Syracuse.  This link has Joe talking away on TV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX5nlKcTzvU&eurl=http://americansforprosperity.org/index.php?id=6409

Plugs, the Buffoon, has to stay low in the current administration, apparently, because his mouth seems to utter sounds and thoughts that do not correlate with history or the current Obama shifting platforms on the economy.

Spend some more?

Is this like we did with the ‘stimulus’ package that was passed in Congress with fluff and foam and bleary eyed and did nothing to stimulate anything except the stress on the truss straps of certain liberal Democrats? Money is that easy to spend! Lets spend more!! What stimulus did we see from that 150 billion? Oh! Nothing? No effect?

But, then, a tax cut of 300 bln?? How could this happen?

“WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 billion of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs”[8]--Obama Eyes $300 Billion Tax Cut Huge Breaks for Firms, Individuals Are Aimed at Winning GOP Support for Stimulus By JONATHAN WEISMAN and NAFTALI BENDAVID JANUARY 5, 2009

I wonder if O’Bozo talked to either Plugs or Krugman about this? I sometimes wonder if Krugman ever reads the NYT.  He probably just submits his rants ex cathedra. Krugman has ranted on about tax cuts and called those who wanted such demons ‘Tax Cut Zombies.[9] [10] Now, we wonder, is O’Bozo might be a Tax Cut Zombie?? This is just bait for Blue Dog Democrats.

“[Milton] Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment. The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.” Paul Krugman Published: January 4, 2009 [This is Milton Friedman not Thomas Friedman of the NYT. ed]

Keynes got a lot of criticism for his mindless fluff [except from dictators like Stalin, Hitler and FDR], some extracted below, because his phony government infrastructure spending recommendations were tried by Hoover, FDR and others in various countries and they did not work.[11] Our longest stretch of good economic times only came after the Carter Malaise and was the result of Paul Volker implementing Monetarist policies: do not the let the money supply grow faster than real growth. That worked.

The government is particularly inept in creating meaningful jobs that produce efficient goods and services and prefer to spend money to hire losers to sit on ‘education’ programs, run around and inspect things or give out free needles to drug addicts. FDR had people raking leaves in the forests.

The best response to this slowing economy would be to eliminate corporate taxes for two years and cut most of the bureaucratic crap and red tape out of the government. Agencies like HHS, HUD, Fanny Mae, EPA, Head Stop and others should be canned.

Krugman gets around handing out money like this:

“This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment “which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.” Paul Krugman Published: January 4, 2009

This is an extra special statement and quite predictable from the New York Times or one of the lackeys who scrawl messages on the walls therein.  It says:

[1] There is money to spend when there is a huge deficit and falling tax revenues and the Fed is just printing ‘money.”  So, that is false.

[2] Idle people would have freshly printed money to spend not tied to any budget. That is foolish.

[3] That idle people raking leaves or howling at the moon or sharpening used syringes would be doing something useful.

And this is supposed to be ‘economic’ advice?

“So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?” Paul Krugman Published: January 4, 2009

So, our economist ends with the gloom and doom threat that if we do not spread money around so idle people can do some thing useful that we will fly face-forward in to The Great Depression II?

I have a cost-cutting scheme for the NYT as they are going broke because they publish little but political fluff so here it is: Whenever they want to publish an article by Krugman that it read like this:

“Krugman Says: Raise Taxes for Any and All Reasons #1” Paul Krugman Published: Month, day , year. 

And just update the little pink number. That would be more efficient as it would [1] put aside some news print and spare a few trees, [2] would be concise and to the point, [3] would be easy for the dumbest liberal to understand and [4] would not violate any leftist belief.

Progress.

rycK

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com

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[1] 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.

[2] Krugman Sanctions O’Bozo’s Several Years of Impending Deficit Red Ink.  This is Textbook Economics we are Advised.

http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/11/07/krugman_sanctions_o%E2%80%99bozo%E2%80%99s_several_years_of_impending_deficit_red_ink__this_is_textbook_economics_we_are_advised.thtml

[3] Krugman Receives the Ultimate Insult: The Swede's Bozo Prize for Leftist Stooges.

http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/10/14/krugman_receives_the_ultimate_insult_the_swedes_bozo_prize_for_leftist_stooges.thtml

[4] Krugman of the NYT Has Divined the Future for US: Obama Will Heal with More Government and Higher Taxes!http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/12/22/krugman_of_the_nyt_has_divined_the_future_for_us_obama_will_heal_with_more_government_and_higher_taxes!.thtml

[5] New political definition of the word: A sudden pinch of a Twinkie for enlightenment.  Previously,  twink is defined only as  "memorable for his outer packaging", not his "inner depth". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twink_(gay_slang)

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian

[7] Fighting Off Depression By Paul Krugman Op-Ed Columnist Published: January 4, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html

[8] Obama Eyes $300 Billion Tax Cut Huge Breaks for Firms, Individuals Are Aimed at Winning GOP Support for Stimulus By JONATHAN WEISMAN and NAFTALI BENDAVID http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111279694652423.html JANUARY 5, 2009

[9] Paul Krugman and the New York Times Tax Hike Freak Show Menagerie

[10] The Tax-Cut Zombies  By PAUL KRUGMAN Op-Ed Columnist. Published: December 23, 2005. http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23krugman.html?hp

[11] Monetarist criticism

One school began in the late 1940s with Milton Friedman. Instead of rejecting macro-measurements and macro-models of the economy, the monetarist school embraced the techniques of treating the entire economy as having a supply and demand equilibrium. However, they regarded inflation as solely being due to the variations in the money supply, rather than as being a consequence of aggregate demand. They argued that the "crowding out" effects discussed above would hobble or deprive fiscal policy of its positive effect. Instead, the focus should be on monetary policy, which was largely ignored by early Keynesians.

Monetarism had an ideological as well as a practical appeal: monetary policy does not, at least on the surface, imply as much government intervention in the economy as other measures. The monetarist critique pushed Keynesians toward a more balanced view of monetary policy, and inspired a wave of revisions to

The Lucas critique

Another influential school of thought was based on the Lucas critique of Keynesian economics. This called for greater consistency with microeconomic theory and rationality, and particularly emphasized the idea of rational expectations. Lucas and others argued that Keynesian economics required remarkably foolish and short-sighted behavior from people, which totally contradicted the economic understanding of their behavior at a micro level. New classical economics introduced a set of macroeconomic theories which were based on optimising microeconomic behavior, for instance real business cycles.