"Not Everything Is Political" by Paul Krugman at the NY Times

[applegrove]

Not Everything Is Political

by Paul Krugman at the NY Times

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/not-everything-is-political/

"SNIP.............................



Brad points out, correctly, that Crook demands that I engage respectfully with reasonable people on the other side, but somehow fails to offer even one example of such a person. Not long ago Crook was offering Paul Ryan as an exemplar of serious, honest conservatism, while I was shrilly declaring Ryan a con man. But I suspect that even Crook now admits, at least to himself, that Ryan is indeed a con man.

........

Wait — is that what it’s about? If you read my original post, and Noah Smith’s KrugTron the Invincible post that inspired it, you’ll see that it’s all about macroeconomics — about questions like whether budget deficits in a depressed economy drive up interest rates and crowd out private investment, about whether printing money in a depressed economy is inflationary, about whether rising government debt has severe negative impacts on growth.

What do these questions have in common? They’re factual questions, with factual answers — and they have absolutely no necessary relationship to the “proper scale and scope of government”. You could, in principle, believe that we need a drastically downsized government, and at the same time believe that cutting government spending right now will increase unemployment. You could believe that discretionary policy of any kind is a mistake, and at the same time admit that the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet isn’t at all inflationary under current circumstances.

So where’s this stuff about the scale of government coming from? Well, in practice it turns out that many conservatives are unwilling to concede that Keynesian macro has any validity to it, or that you can sometimes run the printing presses without unleashing runaway inflation, because they fear that any such admission would open the doors to much wider government intervention. But that’s exactly my point! They’re letting their views about how the world works be dictated by their vision of the kind of society they want; they’re politicizing their economic analysis. And that’s why they keep getting everything wrong.


...........................SNIP"

[Electric Monk]

1. I'm not sure why this fell like a rock yesterday, but I'll give it a K&R again.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022783115

People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Facts are facts.

[mindwalker_i]

2. Krugman gives them too much credit

The Republicans already know that Kenesian economics works, and they know that trickle-down doesn't. They know this! They simply don't care. Look at who's been hurt by the recession, and look who's done well, not even just by comparison. I suspect that Krugman knows this as well.

This is just how the Republicans operate now. What they do is to help their own reelections, usually by funneling money to the rich or to "defense" companies, who return a chunk of that to the campaign coffers of the Republicans. There were likely a bunch of reasons for the Iraq war, but a big reason was to get taxpayer to Republican-friendly companies (through no-bid contracts), who could then "lose" a bunch of that money. Does anyone really believe that? I bet a shitload came back to Republicans and their campaigns.

Anti-environmentalism? The Republicans know what's real, but they also know that money is to be made. End. Of. Story.

Deficit? Anybody who believes they give a shit about that punch themselves in the face. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. It's so obviously false when just considering that cuts in taxes. For the rich.

Republicans don't even have an ideology anymore. That only pops up when an excuse is needed for some pro-transfer-cash-to-the-wealthy scheme needs to be justified.

I suspect Krugman knows all this. I suspect Obama knows all this too.

[applegrove]

3. Yes. I agree. He knows. He's trying to give them an out... a way to back out...in hopes that they

become more truthfull.

[senseandsensibility]

5. Well, good luck with that...

Not gonna happen.

[dgauss]

4. Some interesting comments on this blog.