Krugman doesn't mention Obama

[JoFerret]

...in his op-ed in today's NYTimes but his review of prosperity, incomes, and economic comparisons shows how inaccurate Obama was in his dismissal of the Bush-Clinton years as having failed Americans economically. That rolling them together as one package was inaccurate and deceptive. I wish Obama had stuck to the facts and slammed Bush and bushonomics rather than slander Hillary by "false" association with the economically successful Clinton years when real incomes rose, jobs were created and there was progress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin


Meanwhile - in a duelling oped across the same page - that boy wonder of the neo-cons William Kristol uses Karl Marx to reveal the all-too-obvious GOP strategy for defeating Obama. The "real" Obama from behind the mask is unamerican, unpatriotic and condescending. Obama's words are nothing less than an attack on the sincerity of faith according to Kristol. Can racism and bigoty be far behind? (Check in next month.) Kristol is an odious oik but 'tis best to know one's opponents positions. Hillary is doing Obama a favor by helping him on the path of preparing his defenses.

[joeybee12]

1. Yup, Obama and his Bots are trying to re-write history...8 years of

peace and prosperity...of course, not everything was great, but those were properous and good times overall, and lumping Clinton with Bush, like Obama does, is probably one of the lower, dirtier and disingenious things he's done.

[Armstead]

3. The economy became increasingly concentrated and deregulated...

and polarized under the Clintons. There was a glossy happy-face surface because of the Tech Bubble. But the Clintons refused to deal with the underlying fundamental problems that have bubbled to the surface now.

The Clintons were luck that they got out when they did -- if they had stayed in office for a year longer, their legacy would have been a bursting of the economy.

[JoFerret]

6. Obama's call for regulation

has been one of his better moments.


I think we will have regulation whichever dem is in the WH. it is obvious to everyone now that deregulation has gone too far. Time for a corrective.

[papau]

10. I agree - but the poor analysis of Glass-Steagall and telecommunications reform does not bode well

for the results of any Obama re regulation effort - but since the Obama campaign comment to Kudlow at CNBC that it is just campaign talk and the proposed social programs have no cost because no one expects them to pass, I have assumed that whatever Obama says in public is a lie.

As to Glass-Steagall - the artificial split by "type" of institution was being broken by new product design (I designed a few for Fortune 50 financial companies) and the only real difference by "type" was cost of regulation and speed to market. It was well past the time to reform it.

As to telecommunications, hard to see how the internet and its expansion would have happen as easily if the reforms were not adopted - although the media consolidation from 12 major firms to today's 6 was bad, that cat was out of the bag with Reagan's moves that moved the 400 firms in 83 into the 12 in 96.

[JoFerret]

12. Your expertise exceeds mine

But I do not imagine Obama seeking regulation and re-regulation with any conviction or success. I just don't see that determination in him for anything except to win.

[papau]

9. not true - indeed class warfare decreased as the bottom finally got a bit of the growth in GDP

[GarbagemanLB]

2. Yep...NAFTA has been awesome for those small towns...

[JoFerret]

8. Why should they worry?

...they have their faith and hope to pay the bills. And that covers health insurance too. And they can always join the army. Lots of jobs there.

[maximusveritas]

4. If this controversy had been reversed, then Krugman would have attacked Obama

for buying into Republican talking points about Dems being elitists.

Yet another sign that he's become an anti-Obama hack.

[JoFerret]

13. How do you mean "reversed"? How?

And to call him an anti-Obama hack is plain silly.

Do you think Obama was factually accurate?

[maximusveritas]

14. I mean if Clinton had made the "bitter" comment

and Obama attacked her for it while simultaneously promoting the myth that this is why we've been losing elections in the past.

And if you're going to say it's silly to call him an anti-Obama hack, how about you provide some evidence to back that up.

Not only has he refused to attack Hillary for doing the same things he attacks Obama for. He's gone out of his way to attack Obama repeatedly while leaving McCain alone until recently.

[JoFerret]

15. Krugman would have no need to

...attack her as it is highly unlikely (read would not happen) that she would condemn the Clinton economy. She could easily roll Obama and Bush together and she probably has. but not to my knowledge on the subject of economics.

Obama wins no new fans by attacking successful democratic presidencies.

And the "bitter" misstep rolls a wide range of issues into one short paragraph. Obama is vulnerable to GOP onslaught on all of them.(Check kristol - if you can bear that odious neo-con prig - for the list.)

[ProSense]

5. When it comes to the Clintons, it's a new day, but the same old politics

Rat Democracy Economics explains a political scandal.

By Paul Krugman
(1,279 words; posted Thursday, May 15; to be composted Thursday, May 22)

Like most people who once hoped for better, I have become resigned to the accumulation of tawdry detail about how President Clinton financed his re-election campaign. But condemning Clinton's brazen opportunism begs the question: Where did the opportunities to be so brazen come from?

This may seem to be a question for a political analyst, not an economist. But there is an approach to political analysis known as "rat choice" (rat as in "rational"--it's not a comment on the candidates) that flourishes along the border of the two fields. The working hypothesis of rat choice is that voting behavior reflects the more or less rational pursuit of individual interests. This may sound obvious, innocuous, and even excessively optimistic. But if you really think its implications through, they turn out to be quite subversive. Indeed, if you take rat choice seriously, you stop asking why democracy works so badly and start asking why it works at all.

<...>

For example, not many voters know or care whether the United States uses a substantial amount of its diplomatic capital to open European markets to Central American bananas. Why should they? (I only keep track of the dispute because I have to update my textbook, which includes the sentence: "Efforts to resolve Europe's banana split have proved fruitless.") But Carl Lindner, the corporate raider who now owns Chiquita Brands, has strong feelings about the issue; and thanks to his $500,000 in contributions, so does President Clinton. It's not that Clinton believed that money alone could buy him the election. But money does help, and any practical politician comes to realize that betraying the public interest on small issues involves little political cost, because voters lack the individual incentive to notice.

So what is the solution?

One answer is to try to change the incentives of politicians, by making it more difficult for special interests to buy influence. It is easy to be cynical about this, but the truth is that legal limits on how money can be given do have considerable effect. To take only the most extreme example: Outright bribes do not, as far as we can tell, play a big role in determining federal policies--and who doubts that they would if they were legal? So by all means let us have campaign-finance reform; but let us not expect too much from it.

more

What a Story! Candidate Personally Receives Hundreds of Thousands From Foreign Sources, Private Interests

[OhioBlue]

7. Except he forgets the job killing trade deals the Clintons gave us.

Sure, we didn't lose those jobs right away, but the jobs were lost none the less.

and we have Clinton to thank for it.

[papau]

11. NAFTA was signed by Bush 41 and 94 was a GOP Senate - plus there was a net plus in

job creation the first 5 years.

[ProSense]

16. How do you explain Hillary vehemently denying she supported it when that claim was false?

If it was so good, why was she embarrassed or trying to hide her support of it?

[OhioBlue]

17. the legislation was signed by Clinton - nice try to spin tho. n/t

[SoCalDem]

18. Sorry to have to tell you this, but during the clinton years we were all

still "riding the bubbles"..

Sure, people did feel richer, and maybe some were, but many many many people were just "house-rich", and started withdrawing equity in huge amounts and continuing to use the credit cards, so maybe their standards of living seemed better, and maybe they felt rich. but as with all bubbles, they eventually pop..and now there's only a few bubbles left..
Social security & the 401-k bubble..

never fear.. they will also pop..it just take a little more time..

We have been living illusory lives for about 30 years now, and it's time to pay the piper..

[cooolandrew]

19. That was then, this is now NAFTA and welfare refrom came "home TO ROOST".