Paul Krugman...The Bleeding Cure

[rsmith6621]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/opinion/economic-bleeding-cure.html?_r=1&src=recg


Doctors used to believe that by draining a patient’s blood they could purge the evil “humors” that were thought to cause disease. In reality, of course, all their bloodletting did was make the patient weaker, and more likely to succumb.

Fortunately, physicians no longer believe that bleeding the sick will make them healthy. Unfortunately, many of the makers of economic policy still do. And economic bloodletting isn’t just inflicting vast pain; it’s starting to undermine our long-run growth prospects.

Some background: For the past year and a half, policy discourse in both Europe and the United States has been dominated by calls for fiscal austerity. By slashing spending and reducing deficits, we were told, nations could restore confidence and drive economic revival.

[Zoeisright]

1. My God - that's exactly it!

Krugman is a genius.

[BloomTownie]

3. Genius indeed!

He makes economics so simple to understand! Like my youngster told me earlier today - money is just like coupons. We just need to flood the system with more - keep the presses running! When the dollar finally collapses - the gov't steps in and hands out the 'new' coupons.

I know Krugman advised Enron in economic matters - that company was ahead of its time and so is the Professor!

If you want some more greatness from Paul Krugman - check out his blog entry on 9/11/11 - put the whole day in perspective for sure!

[dgauss]

4. Heck, you're the genius!

You make Krugman so easy to understand! He just wants the government to hand out money. Professor indeed! Great insight!

[Fumesucker]

10. Krugman advocates getting money to people on the bottom of the economic ladder..

Rather than the great majority of money going to those on the top of the economic ladder..

400 families now control more wealth than the bottom 150 million people in the USA, a ratio even higher than that in the Gilded Age, you know, the era that was defined by the Robber Barons.

[Bandit]

12. Do you support Bottom up or Top down economics?

Simple question...Are you a supply side or demand side believer?

[BloomTownie]

14. wrong question

You would have to be a 'believer' in the so-called 'Free' Market to be a supply sider or demad sider. Don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows brother!

[Bandit]

15. Do you understand the meaning of the word economics?

:shrug:

[BloomTownie]

16. Economics

Everything I know about economics I learned from Bruce Sprngsteen:

Poor man want to be rich
Rich man want to be king
And a King aint satisfied
unitl he owns everything

Krugman is my econ prof!

[mistertrickster]

18. Enjoy your brief stay . . . nt

[coalition_unwilling]

8. What a dufus. Welcome to my Ignore list - n/t

[mmonk]

11. Or we could pay for things like before the cult of Milton Freidman

and the failure of its absolutes.

[Speck Tater]

2. He still talks like "growth" is a good thing. Growth and sustainability cannot cooexist. nt

[jwirr]

5. That is what bothers me about most of our liberal economists. They

have not come to terms with the other problems we are facing: oil depletion, climate change, water and food shortages and over population. I don't think that money makes the world go round anymore.

[eridani]

9. Keynesianism could still work if what we spend more money on--

--enables us to live with less throughput of energy and raw materials.

[jwirr]

19. Yes, I agree with that.

[BootinUp]

6. -1

The nonsense you are posting is not worth much more comment really.

[Speck Tater]

17. Is growth sustainable?

Given an approximate world population of 7 billion right now, and a modest growth rate of 2% per year, the world population doubles every 36 years.

The dry land surface area of the planet is 148,300,000 sq KM, or roughly 47 people per square kilometer on average.

In 36 years that will be 94 people per KM
In 72 years that will be 188 people per KM
In 108 years that will be 376 people per KM
In 142 years that will be 752 people per KM
In 178 years that will be 1504 people per KM
In 214 years that will be 3008 people per KM
In 250 years that will be 6016 people per KM
In 286 years that will be 12032 people per KM (Each person gets a space 9 meters on a side)
In 322 years that will be 24064 people per KM
In 358 years that will be 58128 people per KM
In 394 years that will be 116256 people per KM (Now your allotment is 3 meters on a side)
In 430 years that will be 232512 people per KM
In 466 years that will be 465024 people per KM
In 502 years that will be 930048 people per KM (Each person now has about 1 square meter to themselves)
In 538 years that will be 1860096 people per KM (and you now share your 1 square meter with another person)
In 574 years that will be 3720192 people per KM
In 610 years that will be 7440384 people per KM (over 7 people in each square meter)
In 646 years that will be 14880768 people, stacked two deep over ever square kilometer of the entire dry surface of the earth.
In 682 years that will be 29761536 people stacked four deep in each KM
In 718 years that will be 59523072 people per KM stacked 8 deep over the entire earth
In 744 years that will be 119046144 per KM stacked 16 deep over the entire earth.
...
and so on.

People who think growth is sustainable don't understand simple math.

[sabrina 1]

7. You only have to look at Europe, Greece, Italy, Portugal

to see how well their 'auterity' nonsense has worked. And now they are trying to do it here.

First the geniuses on Wall St. and their cohorts gamble away the people's money while cheering for 'Capitalism'. right, isn't it great? Then their huge Ponzi scheme blows up, not only in their faces but in the World's. People all over the world lose their jobs, homes, life savings because of the corruption and crime perpetrated by these morons.

Next, they go running to the American Taxpayers demanding money to bail them out before we find out just how badly they screwed up.

After plugging as many holes as they can, apparently all over the world to try to clean up their mess, it doesn't work and they come back for more. And they get it after threatening Marital Law etc if they do not.

When that doesn't work, they figure the best thing to do is to make the victims of their corruption pay their debts. They come up with what they are best at, lingo that they think makes their next heist seem 'professional'. So, they force 'austerity' on the people of Europe which results in riots everywhere and countries like Greece unable to force the 'cuts' on a population already suffering from unemployment. Things are WORSE now than when the cover-up began.

So, they are now royally screwed, with the Europeans threatening to break up the EU and Greece about to default, again, which would trigger several other disasters. What to do? You can't squeeze any more out of the people. Although they are still trying. Shameless, heartless crooks.

What should have been done was to start prosecuting them and retrieving some of the money they stole as Iceland did. Their 'too big to fail' banks should have confiscated by the government and broken up into smaller entities and Glass Steagal reinstated. It was like a lock on a vault which kept them out successfully for decades, but once it was removed, it was a regular free-for-all.

Krugman's analogy is fitting for what they are trying to do and someone needs to stop them before they do any more harm. And these are the 'best minds on the planet'!

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. +1. nt