Krugman: Machine at Work (Enron, DeLay, Repugs)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/opinion/13KRUG.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

From a business point of view, Enron is a smoking ruin. But there's important evidence in the rubble.

If Enron hadn't collapsed, we might still have only circumstantial evidence that energy companies artificially drove up prices during California's electricity crisis. Because of that collapse, we have direct evidence in the form of the now-infamous Enron tapes — although the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Justice Department tried to prevent their release.

Now, e-mail and other Enron documents are revealing why Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, is one of the most powerful men in America.

A little background: at the Republican convention, most featured speakers will be social moderates like Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A moderate facade is necessary to win elections in a generally tolerant nation. But real power in the party rests with hard-line social conservatives like Mr. DeLay, who, in the debate over gun control after the Columbine shootings, insisted that juvenile violence is the result of day care, birth control and the teaching of evolution.

Here's the puzzle: if Mr. DeLay's brand of conservatism is so unpopular that it must be kept in the closet during the convention, how can people like him really run the party?

[tom_paine]

1. kick for Krugman

:kick: :kick:

[Jack Rabbit]

2. A point to drive home

The larger picture is this: Mr. DeLay and his fellow hard-liners, whose values are far from the American mainstream, have forged an immensely effective alliance with corporate interests. And they may be just one election away from achieving a long-term lock on power.

Defeating Bush is not the only necessary item on the agenda this Fall or in the coming years. We must bury neoconservatism with a stake through its heart.

[Auntie Bush]

5. And let's hope it is a nice long stake and

**** is standing right behind it.

[tom_paine]

3. another kick for Krugman

:kick:

[Langtree]

4. Krugman Worked as Chief Economist at Enron during Clinton Admin ...

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2002_01_13_dish_archive.html

"TICK TOCK: It’s now been three days since Paul Krugman’s $50,000 check from Enron was reported by the New York Times. Not a single media reporter has yet covered it. Romenesko, who has reported in the last two days on an editor’s pencil-tapping in meetings at the Southwest Journal and a flap over a cartoon in a Texas college newspaper, hasn’t reported the New York Times’ chief economics columnist on the take from Enron."

Krugman worked for Enron through most of 1999, before leaving Enron for The New York Times. He seems to be a bad source for anything concerning Enron, as it's a bit like 'the pot calling the kettle black'. Let's fins a less compromised source for Enron info, as there are plenty out there besides Krugman, who seems to be caught in a conflict of interest, to say the least.

[Auntie Bush]

6. Are you a Democrat?

[glitch]

7. no he didn't - this has been debunked repeatedly here and elsewhere

gutsy using Andrew Sullivan as a 'source' though.

[Raster]

8. what a crock, go back to freeper land

[rooboy]

9. That Joe Lieberman avatar is the equivalent of a spinning bow-tie.

Nobody will take you seriously around here...

[priller]

10. Wow, Chief Economist only pays $50K?

So silly.

As others have said, this story has been debunked countless times. Krugmann himself discusses the issue thoroughly.

[Hoping4Change]

12. FYI Krugman worked for Shrub and says he was amazed at

the level of ignorance in people advising the pResident. He couldn't believe those with so much power were so lacking in basic intelligence.

[RamboLiberal]

13. Are you confusing Krugman with Paul O' Neill

The former Treasury Secretary and Alcoa CEO who's story in the * admin - "The Price of Loyalty" by Ron Suskind?

[Hoping4Change]

15. Perhaps it was O'Neill. Krugman 's statement referring to

Reagan's advisers.

[Hoping4Change]

14. Krugman responded to the same Sullivan attack 2 yrs ago.

snip

Some people have accused me of an ethical lapse because I served briefly on an Enron advisory board in 1999 - even though I disclosed that relationship the only time I wrote about the company (rather favorably) for Fortune, back in May1999, and again the first time I wrote about the company (in a highly critical article) for the New York Times, which I did in January 2001. Since then I've been pretty hard on Enron, to say the least: I criticized the firm's role in the California energy crisis, and have not been kind as the firm's own problems have surfaced.

By the way, here's the piece I wrote in Fortune. It looks a bit naive now, but it's a love letter to markets, not to Enron

snip

When I accepted the position at the New York Times, I severed the Enron connection, and also dropped any paid speaking and consulting that might violate the strict Times conflict-of-interest rules.

My critics, ignoring the fact that I have been extremely tough on Enron, seem desperate to find something unethical in all of this. Sorry: there's nothing there.


http://www.pkarchive.org/personal/MeandEnron.html

[Raster]

11. The last two paras are the meat of the matter....

"But you shouldn't conclude that the system is working. Mr. DeLay's current predicament is an accident. The party machine that he has done so much to create has eliminated most of the checks and balances in our government. Again and again, Republicans in Congress have closed ranks to block or emasculate politically inconvenient investigations. If Enron hadn't collapsed, and if Texas didn't still have a campaign finance law that is a relic of its populist past, Mr. DeLay would be in no danger at all.

"The larger picture is this: Mr. DeLay and his fellow hard-liners, whose values are far from the American mainstream, have forged an immensely effective alliance with corporate interests. And they may be just one election away from achieving a long-term lock on power.


Perhaps it's time that delay's gennifer flowers or what was the name of that other republiskank come forward... You just know delay has some nasty skeletons buried somewhere, it's time to dig them up!