Actual Experts

[Cancel 2016.11]

Not Internet "experts" fluffed by other idiots.

Just in case anyone wants to learn something...this is a great piece.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...ell-us/?page=1

[Haiku]

That's a good piece. I remember when we thought that all anyone needed was the facts and the ability to think. Boy were we wrong....

[Rune]

Good article Darla, but the economy is right where Goldman Sachs wants it to be. There are still a lot of deals for pennies on the dollar available and they hav'en't had time enough to suck all the wealth out of the middle class yet.

The greatest theft in the history of mankind is still in progress, and those losing the most are busy keeping those stealing the most in power.

[Cancel 2016.11]

Good article Darla, but the economy is right where Goldman Sachs wants it to be. There are still a lot of deals for pennies on the dollar available and they hav'en't had time enough to suck all the wealth out of the middle class yet.

The greatest theft in the history of mankind is still in progress, and those losing the most are busy keeping those stealing the most in power.

Agreed.

[Cancel 2016.11]

That's a good piece. I remember when we thought that all anyone needed was the facts and the ability to think. Boy were we wrong....

Well I think that recent study that showed how the conservative mind reacts to facts which dispute their emotional opinions - by becoming even more convinced they're right - really explains a lot.

[Rune]

Well I think that recent study that showed how the conservative mind reacts to facts which dispute their emotional opinions - by becoming even more convinced they're right - really explains a lot.

That explains a lot. I would love to see that study.

[Cancel 2016.11]

Here you go Rune:

http://www.alternet.org/right-wing-p...als?paging=off

[blackascoal]

Neither Krugman nor Stiglitz are looking for the same outcomes from the economy as Obama. Obama has to ensure the corporate profit-taking.

Absolutely Obama will win a second term. But the question is, what will he do when he no longer has to worry about being re-elected? He didn't pay progressives much attention when he did. He did virtually nothing about banking failures and he ignored Krugman and Stiglitz on the size of the stimulus.

All indicators are that he will more more to the right.

[Cancel 2016.2]

Not Internet "experts" fluffed by other idiots.

Just in case anyone wants to learn something...this is a great piece.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...ell-us/?page=1

Wow... the two warped Keynesians at it again...

This...

we’re not using the knowledge we have, because too many people who matter—politicians, public officials, and the broader class of writers and talkers who define the conventional wisdom—have, for a variety of reasons, chosen to forget the lessons of history and the conclusions of several generations’ worth of economic analysis, replacing that hard-won knowledge with ideologically and politically convenient prejudices.

Is the best example of IRONY... EVER

[Cancel 2016.2]

Weak demand and rock-bottom interest rates have made banks reluctant to lend even with looser money; without such lending and the resulting expansion, Krugman argued, underlying inflation couldn’t and wouldn’t escalate.

Yet when you take a look at what has happened to food, energy, clothing prices in the past 5 years, you see that Krugman is once again in la la land. He seems to forget that on a day by day basis, inflation is indeed hammering consumers. Pumping the market with more money will simply weaken the dollar further. When you weaken the dollar, commodity prices will tend to escalate. This will further increase the price of food, energy and clothing. The stupidity of 'keep spending more' never gets old with Krugman. He thumps his chest with his warped Keynesian pride and chirps away... as does Stiglitz to a lesser degree.

The money doesn't come from thin air. It is money that has to be paid back and Krugman is asking future generations to take the pain so that we don't ever have to. It is a purely selfish and completely ideological drive by Krugman. Which takes us back to the irony of his earlier comment that I quoted.

[Cancel 2016.2]

By contrast, the evidence provides virtually no support for the repeatedly shifting conservative talking points about incipient inflation, business skittishness over regulatory uncertainty, or a sudden collapse in the quality of the American workforce.

Yeah... that is why businesses are sitting on cash, refusing to hire... because uncertainty in taxes and regulation don't bother them. The American workforce is seeing jobs come into the market that are low paying, not high or mid tier paying jobs. The median income is dropping. The prices of food, clothing and energy continue to chew up more of the average American budget. The stimulus if anything has proven that the warped Keynesian views shouted about by the likes of Krugman don't work. simply tossing money to states that cannot balance their budgets does nothing to solve the long term problems we face. You cannot simply keep putting more bandaids on the gaping wound. Sooner or later you have to repair the wound.

Keynesian theory does work if done on things like infrastructure. It works here because you can take money you would have spend 6-10 years from now and move that up and spend it in the next 5 years. This done at a time with a weak labor market will obviously help the overall economy in the short term and as other industries begin to hire again to meet demand, then you can start cutting the infrastructure jobs and spending to match (this will help avoid wage inflation... like we saw in the late 90's).

[Cancel 2016.2]

Going to Stiglitz... on this, I largely agree with him...

The reason, according to Stiglitz, is that the vaunted American market is broken. And the reason for that, he argues, is that our economy is being overwhelmed by politically engineered market advantages—special deals that Stiglitz labels with a term familiar to economists: “rent-seeking.” By this, he means economic returns above normal market levels that are derived from favorable political treatment. In the most powerful parts of The Price of Inequality, Stiglitz chronicles the blatant tax and spending giveaways to big agriculture, big energy, and countless other sectors. Yet he also pointedly argues that much of the rent-seeking that plagues our economy takes a more subtle form, also familiar to economists: “negative externalities,” or costs that economic producers impose on society for which they don’t pay.

It is time to eliminate the current tax code in its entirety (brackets, loopholes, deductions, subsidies).

It is time to simplify it to make it a truly fair system where greedy politicians in both parties are not able to pocket bribes in return for favors. Sorry, I meant to say that they are not allowed to 'lobby'... I keep forgetting that they changed the word so that they can pretend they are not being bribed.

[canceled.2021.1]

Yet when you take a look at what has happened to food, energy, clothing prices in the past 5 years, you see that Krugman is once again in la la land. He seems to forget that on a day by day basis, inflation is indeed hammering consumers. Pumping the market with more money will simply weaken the dollar further. When you weaken the dollar, commodity prices will tend to escalate. This will further increase the price of food, energy and clothing. The stupidity of 'keep spending more' never gets old with Krugman. He thumps his chest with his warped Keynesian pride and chirps away... as does Stiglitz to a lesser degree.

The money doesn't come from thin air. It is money that has to be paid back and Krugman is asking future generations to take the pain so that we don't ever have to. It is a purely selfish and completely ideological drive by Krugman. Which takes us back to the irony of his earlier comment that I quoted.

You might as well be arguing with a tree than try to make sense to libtard. They are prewired to do what their "betters" tell them. If Krugman says "JUMP" they say how high. If Krugman says we need to print even more money then they say "well he has a Nobel Prize, how can he be wrong?"

It is clear that when Darla and Prune were in college (if they even went), they took gruelling courses like "Evil White Men Screw Over Coloreds and Broads". They didn't have time for basic economics. Or tif they did take economics, they learned it from a descendant of Karl Marx

[Cancel 2016.2]

Good article Darla, but the economy is right where Goldman Sachs wants it to be. There are still a lot of deals for pennies on the dollar available and they hav'en't had time enough to suck all the wealth out of the middle class yet.

The greatest theft in the history of mankind is still in progress, and those losing the most are busy keeping those stealing the most in power.

Agreed... which is why we need to put Glass Steagall back in place, why we need real financial reform and why we need to hammer these assholes out of the profession of managing money. They are reckless and now that they have big government backing their play, they are getting more reckless.

[Bonestorm]

Yet when you take a look at what has happened to food, energy, clothing prices in the past 5 years, you see that Krugman is once again in la la land. He seems to forget that on a day by day basis, inflation is indeed hammering consumers. Pumping the market with more money will simply weaken the dollar further. When you weaken the dollar, commodity prices will tend to escalate. This will further increase the price of food, energy and clothing. The stupidity of 'keep spending more' never gets old with Krugman. He thumps his chest with his warped Keynesian pride and chirps away... as does Stiglitz to a lesser degree.

Inflation isn't hammering anyone. It just isn't. You can keep claiming it is over and over and over and over again, but that doesn't make it so. Inflation has been at or below the FED target rate for a long long time. Future inflation expectations aren't high at all. If we reach a point where inflation becomes problematic, the FED has plenty of tools in its arsenal to deal with that particular problem.

The real problem that we have right now is that not enough people are employed and people don't have money to spend.

The money doesn't come from thin air. It is money that has to be paid back and Krugman is asking future generations to take the pain so that we don't ever have to. It is a purely selfish and completely ideological drive by Krugman. Which takes us back to the irony of his earlier comment that I quoted.

If done appropriately, we can spend now on things that we will have to spend money on eventually anyway and can do so at negative real interest rates. Under the circumstances, there is no good reason not to do it. Of course, debating this issue is stupid in any event since we're talking about fiscal policy and Congress isn't going to do anything anyway. Monetary policy is all we've got and we've got few options there.