Krugman: Obama Could 'Go Down In History As The Wimp Who Threw It All Away'

[blackascoal]

Paul Krugman is not happy with President Barack Obama.

The New York Times columnist slammed Obama in a blog post Wednesday for his handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations, arguing that the president didn't need to be so concerned with securing a deal by the end of the year because going over the cliff wouldn't have had a big impact on the economy for weeks or even months.

Obama's desperation has Krugman worried that the president may give away too much as Congressional Republicans threaten to hold the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for spending cuts.

"Obama has to be aware just how much is now riding on his willingness to finally stand up for his side," Krugman wrote. "If he doesn’t, nobody will ever trust him again, and he will go down in history as the wimp who threw it all away."

Many, including Krugman, argued earlier that Obama had plenty of leverage during talks to avert the fiscal cliff -- a set of tax hikes and spending cuts that were scheduled to take place on Jan. 1 -- given that he won the election in part on his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Congress passed a fiscal cliff deal negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, which extends the Bush tax cuts for couples' incomes below $450,000 and individuals' incomes below $400,000. This broke with Obama's promise not to extend the Bush tax cuts on annual incomes above $250,000.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/paul-krugman-obama_n_2396285.html

 

[Althea]

Honestly, a single earner with 3 kids making 250k/yr is hardly rich. I'm ok with the new threshhold. I'm unhappy about the 20% across the board cap gains. I think when you hit 1 million, you should pay at least 25% cap gains....or more.

 

[Cancel 2016.11]

This is more from Krugman, I read it this morning: Now, given his evident antsiness to cut a deal in this case, how credible is his promise to hang tough over the debt ceiling, which is a much brighter red line? He may say that he absolutely, positively won’t negotiate over the ceiling — but nothing in his past behavior makes that believable.

Maybe this time will be different. Maybe the Treasury is secretly preparing to invoke the 14th amendment, or issue a trillion-dollar platinum coin, or direct that the whole budget gap be taken out of spending dear to Republicans. But I have to say that I now expect Obama to cave on the ceiling; and so, of course, do the Republicans, which means that the crisis is going to happen.

The only thing that might save this situation is the fact that Obama has to be aware just how much is now riding on his willingness to finally stand up for his side; if he doesn’t, nobody will ever trust him again, and he will go down in history as the wimp who threw it all away.

But even that may not be enough. I guess we’ll see.

I agree with him.

 

[Cancel 2020.1]

I disagree that the economic impact would have been weeks or months away.

If they didn't reach a deal yesterday, the market likely would have crashed today. How many points is anyone's guess.

 

[blackascoal]

This is more from Krugman, I read it this morning: Now, given his evident antsiness to cut a deal in this case, how credible is his promise to hang tough over the debt ceiling, which is a much brighter red line? He may say that he absolutely, positively won’t negotiate over the ceiling — but nothing in his past behavior makes that believable.

Maybe this time will be different. Maybe the Treasury is secretly preparing to invoke the 14th amendment, or issue a trillion-dollar platinum coin, or direct that the whole budget gap be taken out of spending dear to Republicans. But I have to say that I now expect Obama to cave on the ceiling; and so, of course, do the Republicans, which means that the crisis is going to happen.

The only thing that might save this situation is the fact that Obama has to be aware just how much is now riding on his willingness to finally stand up for his side; if he doesn’t, nobody will ever trust him again, and he will go down in history as the wimp who threw it all away.

But even that may not be enough. I guess we’ll see.

I agree with him.

I agree with him as well.

This is all theater to get to Social Security and Medicare.

 

[Cancel 2016.11]

Honestly, a single earner with 3 kids making 250k/yr is hardly rich. I'm ok with the new threshhold. I'm unhappy about the 20% across the board cap gains. I think when you hit 1 million, you should pay at least 25% cap gains....or more.

Oh but it really is. I read a crazy stat a day or two ago, I wish I could find it, but it was something along the lines of; if you make 35k you are among the world's richest 2%".

It's a lot of damned money. But I think what is most important is that you have to make over 250k to qualify for the tax hike (If Obama had stuck to what he swore he would never back down on!). So you say 250 isn't rich. Okay.

What is?

Let's say you make 260k. You now have to pay a slightly higher tax rate on your last 10 grand in income. What does that cost you? Very little. You are not paying it on the entire 260. (I am sure you know this, but I feel it helps to remind everyone exactly what we are talking about here) So even if you feel you are not rich at 260k, so what? You are only paying a few more bucks a year! You are comfortable enough that it won't hurt you. It just won't. Yeah I know, it costs so much to put your kids to college, etc etc. Guess what? The couple of bucks you have to pay on the 10 grand over the 250 cutoff, isn't sending your kids to college. Let's be frank; it's not even footing the bill for your Starbucks every morning. In fact, not even your Dunkin Donuts bill, if you prefer them!

 

[Cancel 2016.11]

I agree with him as well.

This is all theater to get to Social Security and Medicare.

Yep.

 

[blackascoal]

I disagree that the economic impact would have been weeks or months away.

If they didn't reach a deal yesterday, the market likely would have crashed today. How many points is anyone's guess.

That's doubtful.

It's the same fear of "we gotta do it now" that they now use to rape the American people.

Krugman and Stiglitz have it right .. as usual.

After the Fiscal Cliff - The Joe Stiglitz Recipe for American Recovery

In a recent op-ed in The Guardian, Nobel laureate economist Joe Stiglitz lays out his recipe for America's economic rehabilitation.

"...here is what Americans should hope for: a strong "jobs" bill – based on investments in education, health care, technology, and infrastructure – that would stimulate the economy, restore growth, reduce unemployment, and generate tax revenues far in excess of its costs, thus improving the country's fiscal position. They might also hope for a housing programme that finally addresses America's foreclosure crisis.

A comprehensive programme to increase economic opportunity and reduce inequality is also needed – its goal being to remove, within the next decade, America's distinction as the advanced country with the highest inequality and the least social mobility. This implies, among other things, a fair tax system that is more progressive and eliminates the distortions and loopholes that allow speculators to pay taxes at a lower effective rate than those who work for a living, and that enable the rich to use the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share.

America – and the world – would also benefit from a US energy policy that reduces reliance on imports not just by increasing domestic production, but also by cutting consumption, and that recognises the risks posed by global warming. Moreover, America's science and technology policy must reflect an understanding that long-term increases in living standards depend upon productivity growth, which reflects technological progress that assumes a solid foundation of basic research.

Finally, the US needs a financial system that serves all of society, rather than operating as if it were an end in itself. That means that the system's focus must shift from speculative and proprietary trading to lending and job creation, which implies reforms of financial-sector regulation, and of anti-trust and corporate-governance laws, together with adequate enforcement to ensure that markets do not become rigged casinos.

Stiglitz has long championed redressing America's staggering inequality crisis. In his book, The Price of Inequality, which ought to be a must-read for Canadians too, Stiglitz chronicles how most of American inequality is not merit-driven but the creature of a government, "in which the rich have disproportionate influence – and use that influence to entrench themselves."

The U.S. government has sacrificed the poor and working classes, blue and white collar, to the benefit of the very richest, effecting since the Reagan era, the most massive, unearned transfer of wealth in America's history, mainly out of the pockets of the middle class and into the portfolios of the rentiers. Reversing this societal disease is the key to kickstarting a progressive restoration.
http://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2012/12/after-fiscal-cliff-joe-stiglitz-recipe.html

Obama is an undeniable corporatist.

Why anyone looks to him for fairness is beyond me.

 

[canceled.2021.1]

Oh but it really is. I read a crazy stat a day or two ago, I wish I could find it, but it was something along the lines of; if you make 35k you are among the world's richest 2%".

It's a lot of damned money. But I think what is most important is that you have to make over 250k to qualify for the tax hike (If Obama had stuck to what he swore he would never back down on!). So you say 250 isn't rich. Okay.

What is?

Let's say you make 260k. You now have to pay a slightly higher tax rate on your last 10 grand in income. What does that cost you? Very little. You are not paying it on the entire 260. (I am sure you know this, but I feel it helps to remind everyone exactly what we are talking about here) So even if you feel you are not rich at 260k, so what? You are only paying a few more bucks a year! You are comfortable enough that it won't hurt you. It just won't. Yeah I know, it costs so much to put your kids to college, etc etc. Guess what? The couple of bucks you have to pay on the 10 grand over the 250 cutoff, isn't sending your kids to college. Let's be frank; it's not even footing the bill for your Starbucks every morning. In fact, not even your Dunkin Donuts bill, if you prefer them!

So long as it isn't impacting YOU right? How convenient that you are able to speak for all those making $250,000 a year and know what will and will not impact them. It is amazing.

 

[canceled.2021.1]

Paul Krugman is not happy with President Barack Obama.

The New York Times columnist slammed Obama in a blog post Wednesday for his handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations, arguing that the president didn't need to be so concerned with securing a deal by the end of the year because going over the cliff wouldn't have had a big impact on the economy for weeks or even months.

Obama's desperation has Krugman worried that the president may give away too much as Congressional Republicans threaten to hold the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for spending cuts.

"Obama has to be aware just how much is now riding on his willingness to finally stand up for his side," Krugman wrote. "If he doesn’t, nobody will ever trust him again, and he will go down in history as the wimp who threw it all away."

Many, including Krugman, argued earlier that Obama had plenty of leverage during talks to avert the fiscal cliff -- a set of tax hikes and spending cuts that were scheduled to take place on Jan. 1 -- given that he won the election in part on his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Congress passed a fiscal cliff deal negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, which extends the Bush tax cuts for couples' incomes below $450,000 and individuals' incomes below $400,000. This broke with Obama's promise not to extend the Bush tax cuts on annual incomes above $250,000.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/paul-krugman-obama_n_2396285.html

What makes you or Krugman think the GOP won't roll over like they did on this issue and like they did on the last debt limit debacle? Boehner is an incompetent boob and so i McConnell.

 

[Disillusioned]

Paul Krugman is not happy with President Barack Obama.

The New York Times columnist slammed Obama in a blog post Wednesday for his handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations, arguing that the president didn't need to be so concerned with securing a deal by the end of the year because going over the cliff wouldn't have had a big impact on the economy for weeks or even months.

Obama's desperation has Krugman worried that the president may give away too much as Congressional Republicans threaten to hold the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for spending cuts.

"Obama has to be aware just how much is now riding on his willingness to finally stand up for his side," Krugman wrote. "If he doesn’t, nobody will ever trust him again, and he will go down in history as the wimp who threw it all away."

Many, including Krugman, argued earlier that Obama had plenty of leverage during talks to avert the fiscal cliff -- a set of tax hikes and spending cuts that were scheduled to take place on Jan. 1 -- given that he won the election in part on his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Congress passed a fiscal cliff deal negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, which extends the Bush tax cuts for couples' incomes below $450,000 and individuals' incomes below $400,000. This broke with Obama's promise not to extend the Bush tax cuts on annual incomes above $250,000.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/paul-krugman-obama_n_2396285.html

This really demonstrates the flaw in "party politics". Where getting your own way is more important than ensuring that the market doesn't crash, where somebody thinks that the risk of sending the economy into a death spiral is a legitimate gamble to make sure that medicare doesn't get a portion cut. When did we decide that politicians could gamble with the country this way? It's as insane as threatening war with China to get some trade agreements, insane.

 

[The Dude]

Obama is the Michael Jordan of politics and the teabaggers are the Washington generals.

He'll get ss and hc sound before leaving, forgive him if he wants to dunk in thier face a few times.

 

[Disillusioned]

Obama is the Michael Jordan of politics and the teabaggers are the Washington generals.

He'll get ss and hc sound before leaving, forgive him if he wants to dunk in thier face a few times.

Forgive me if my faith in the chosen one wavered after the first term of minor failures and incompetence, from my view, the only thing that changed when Obama got elected was who went after him relentlessly and who defended him incessantly. The actions seemed almost identical.

 

[Airstrip One]

Krugman should stop being such a racist.

 

[canceled.2021.1]

This really demonstrates the flaw in "party politics". Where getting your own way is more important than ensuring that the market doesn't crash, where somebody thinks that the risk of sending the economy into a death spiral is a legitimate gamble to make sure that medicare doesn't get a portion cut. When did we decide that politicians could gamble with the country this way? It's as insane as threatening war with China to get some trade agreements, insane.

Don't you think there is a problem when the economy is dictated by three people? That in and of itself is a problem and not what the founders intended. The US economy should not be so dependent on what happens in DC. But, the American people get what they deserve.

I am glad so many people are seeing their taxes go up. It is about time.

 

[BRUTALITOPS]

Oh but it really is. I read a crazy stat a day or two ago, I wish I could find it, but it was something along the lines of; if you make 35k you are among the world's richest 2%".

who cares about the world? We shouldn't be setting mud huts and shit in the streets as our baseline for average living. We get to set our own baseline.

You are comfortable enough that it won't hurt you. It just won't.

It's all relative. People in higher incomes have higher expenses. It's not like you a swimming in a pool of gold coins with 250k a year.

 

[007]

So long as it isn't impacting YOU right? How convenient that you are able to speak for all those making $250,000 a year and know what will and will not impact them. It is amazing.

That you is 77%+ of US households!
If you earn 50grand a year you will pay $1100 a year more in tax.
Close to a hundred bucks a month.
I said it before, it was never about taxing the rich.
It was about taxing all!

$41 in taxation for each $1. In spending cuts!!

Winners?
Losers?

The average working American loses to the criminals in government!

That the republicans voted to tax the working stiffs sickens me!
Rinos to a man!
Bohner, brown, mc Cain, the lot!

Liberals, totalitarians and thieves.
They have turned their backs on America.

 

[Althea]

Oh but it really is. I read a crazy stat a day or two ago, I wish I could find it, but it was something along the lines of; if you make 35k you are among the world's richest 2%".

On the world stage, you'd be a gazillionaire. But we're talking about standard of living in the U.S.

It's a lot of damned money. But I think what is most important is that you have to make over 250k to qualify for the tax hike (If Obama had stuck to what he swore he would never back down on!). So you say 250 isn't rich. Okay.

What is?

Depends on many factors. Kids in college? Wife/husband with a horrible illness? What state do you live in? What are your property taxes? Insurance costs? Rent/Mortgage rates?

Let's say you make 260k. You now have to pay a slightly higher tax rate on your last 10 grand in income. What does that cost you? Very little. You are not paying it on the entire 260. (I am sure you know this, but I feel it helps to remind everyone exactly what we are talking about here) So even if you feel you are not rich at 260k, so what? You are only paying a few more bucks a year! You are comfortable enough that it won't hurt you. It just won't. Yeah I know, it costs so much to put your kids to college, etc etc. Guess what? The couple of bucks you have to pay on the 10 grand over the 250 cutoff, isn't sending your kids to college. Let's be frank; it's not even footing the bill for your Starbucks every morning. In fact, not even your Dunkin Donuts bill, if you prefer them!

We both know that once you start to get up into the several hundreds of thousands in income, the tax liability is different for each case. For this discussion, we'll assume it's a straight salary subject to marginal tax rates.

First off...the ACA adds new taxes, which are yet to be fully explored. There's an almost 1% increase in incomes over $125/yr. That's still negligible for the purpose of this discussion.

From the $250k, $80 comes off the top for fed taxes. State income taxes have been going up every year, because there is no fed funding for states. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that the taxpayer in question might pay $40k in state/city income taxes in many states.


So now you're left with $130/yr, before you pay prop taxes, mortgage, etc.

I don't claim they aren't comfortable. I said they aren't rich.

 

[PostmodernProphet]

On the world stage, you'd be a gazillionaire. But we're talking about standard of living in the U.S.

that's the irony.....the standard of living in the US has become.......those fucking rich people ought to give the government more of their money so the government could give it to the rest of us and we could live like those fucking rich people........

 

[Cancel 2016.11]

Firstly, I believe that Americans would do their souls well to give a thought, every once in a while, to how the overwhelming majority of the world lives.

Secondly, the percentage of American households with incomes over 250k is somewhere between 2 and 4 percent, I forget the exact number. When you are in the top 2 to 4 percent nationwide, you are living a startling well-off life.

Most important, because this is the thing that bothers me most. I always hear from high-earners and about high-earners, that they have bills other people don't have. Do you know how much my mortgage is? Do you know what my expenses are? I know someone well whose husband was making 800k a year for several years. Things crashed and she was crying about it all of the time. I told her, look I do understand it's an adjustment from being rich, but...

I got no further. She went sideways 'WE WERE NEVER RICH! DO YOU KNOW THE EXPENSES WE HAVE???"

Yeah, I kinda do! You have a multi-million dollar home, a large pool that you have an actual pool boy for, expensive landscaping and upkeep on that, a custom-built huge closet filled with very expensive designer clothes, some of them custom made, let's see, 2 eight hundred dollar pairs of Cartier sunglasses because one wasn't enough...and so and so on and so on.

My point is, wtf is wrong with you people? THAT'S BEING RICH! It's as if people think that if you're rich, you shouldn't have any expenses or bills. As if that 800k should be what you have after all of your expenses, then you'd be rich. Sorry, no. You are living a rich lifestyle moron, and yeah, that costs money.

Doesn't mean you're not rich. It means you are rich.

I laugh over this stuff, and people always think they can trump me by pointing out that after all, I have no children I can afford designer clothes and this and that, and sure what would a tax hike cost me? I have nothing else to do with my m oney! Because they are spending all of that 800k on their kids! LOL

Seriously, this whole mindset makes zero sense, it's laughable on its face, and you can compare yourself nationally, and then if you have the goddamned guts for it, compare yourself globally...and feel good.

Why is it that people with so much feel so freaking lousy all of the time? I mean, they snarl. It's fucked up man. I feel good, and I don't make 800k I can tell you that, but I do nicely, I am content, and I will pay higher taxes without feeling hate. I also give generously to Unicef and Doctors without borders, as well as to LI Cares for the local hungry. Because although I don't own an 800 dollar pair of sunglasses, I don't need another pair of 200 dollar ones. I have enough.

Do Americans ever know what that means??? I have enough. God that feels good. No snarling needed. Feel good!