An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

"The policies that got us into this mess were not brought about by public demand," says Krugman.

Perchance, is Paul talking about the stimulus and manipulation of the currency and all of the Keynesian solutions * he has been so fond of?

It's fine to cry foul, but if you don't acknowledge that you engage in the same behavior when you do, that's called hypocisy.

As for Fox News coverage of the tea party...couldn't the same be said of MSNBC coverage of the Wisconsin protests? Is it possible that the protests grew because MSNBC 'identified' with the protest'? (oops! Bob is mentioning this now.) Apparently Henry doesn't watch MSNBC. All of the talking heads there, especially Ed Shultz and Rachel Maddow, were definitely 'claiming an identity of the brand' of the the protests. As far as I can see, Fox and MSNBC are mirror images of each other.

*Our benchmark results suggest that the ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state
and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs.

Science Saturday
 

Two weeks without a Science Saturday!!! What is going on?

Is Henry's t-shirt an attempt to make up for this?

Re: Science Saturday
 

Maybe they have trouble filling this slot.

I am looking forward to some day seeing an excellent climate change debate. There certainly haven't been very many anywhere and I think Bob is missing a great marketing opportunity. Bloggingheads would be linked up the wazooo.

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Much more realistic view of Krugman:

"Krugman's placidity and complacency in the face of the Debt Moloch is explained by his wrong interpretation of the historically low interest rates prevailing, and his apparent ignorance of the mechanism whereby government debt is monetized.....

.......Keynesians are fond of saying that government debt does not matter because "we owe it to ourselves". This is a vicious notion. The next generation will have to pay heavy, repressive and disturbing taxes, not to themselves, but to pile up surplus bank reserves. The wealth that future generations have yet to produce will be used to retire the currency now being issued against it."

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

yes Henry, go as far as that. The plunder and wrecking of the US is a long time coming. The concentration and unaccountability of economic and political power, the union of state and corporation amidst waning democracy and political illteracy, elitism, the inversion of public infrastructures into "private" ATMs, and good ol' sheepishness... all mobilized and ramped up, post-911. Throw in enough banal distractions, American Idol, and pathology to watch it all go down..and voila, Fascism American-style, just waiting to hit the bottom.

And Bob, its NOT a Marxist view!!! Even mainstream fixtures like Robert Dahl and Theo Lowi saw elitist power structures at work foreclosing on American democracy decades ago! But blogs a la Ygliesias and Ezra? Is THAT the big hope?

Re: Science Saturday
 

I echo the sentiment!

Re: Science Saturday
 

Me, too. But if we can't have Science Saturday, having Henry is a pretty good substitute.

Re: Science Saturday
 

Yes. My comment was more about missing Science Saturday, and certainly not against Henry. He's one of my favorites.

Re: Science Saturday
 

Agreed. And with Bob, no less. Great combination.

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

It's always a bit shocking for me when I hear a social "scientist" that is so obviously partisan. Bob was much more level headed, thankfully. Was there a groundswell of popular support for Libya? or TARP? Also who's in power matters. It's hard right now to have large grass-root movements take off on the left because the presidency is Democrat. The way I would frame this discussion is how much does the media do to give a voice the emotional masses vs. how much it helps the elites defend the status quo. That's an interesting question, but my null-hypothesis would be that the political colors don't matter as much as larger trends.

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Bob wonders if there can be any data to support the hypothesis of Fox News' orchestrated politics. I think a simple counting of the number of times the word "thug" was used in reference to the Wisconsin protests (on Fox) versus the number of times the same word was used in reference to last summer's tea party protests (on MSNBC) would be in order.

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Yes. I was really taken aback at Krugman's column the other day, where he mentioned that in the typical budget year of 2007 "about half of total spending was on programs for seniors: Social Security, Medicare, much of Medicaid, and other retirement and disability programs." He goes on to argue that spending must rise because there will be a demographic shift to a more aged population. It sounds like air-tight logic. But is this really the way to run a country? Placid Krugman, as far as I could tell, made not the slightest peep of protest that this is how we should be spending money.

We are raping our young so that we can apply state-of-the-art medical care to old, unproductive geezers.

Finance center states benefit from satelite states
 

I find it interesting that two of the larger states in the US, NY and CA, are doing well economically despite their being so expensive tax wise to operate a business in. My guess is one reason is they are the centers for the finance and legal functioning of the entire country. Not sure if CA matches that pattern or not. But I think what Henry was saying at the end makes sense, that Germany should make payments to the financially failing countries in the EU because Germany benefits from being the EU's finance center.

Henry's bold proposal
 

It's tempting, isn't it?

I have daydreamed about winning the lottery and putting part of the loot into Bhtv. As part of the idle speculation, I considered whether it would be appropriate to ask Bob in return for the investment/donation that certain diavloggers be invited to appear nevermore. I did not consider whether he would respond enthusiastically, as it appears he does.

I think, therefore, that Bob should put up a Severance Package Price List for all regularly appearing diavloggers.

And commenters, come to that. How much would you all pay to make, say, me, go away, hmmm?

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

They'll be old soon enough, and they'll want at least the same level of care.

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Yes, we could just euthanize people who reach retirement age and save a ton of money. Also could be applied to the disabled young, just so we'd be immune to charges of age discrimination. Heil abolishing Medicare!


Here's an interesting article on death panels for the young, by the way.

Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

Paul Krugman himself was a member of just such a small group of influential opinion makers once, back in the early 1990's. He, Paul Samuelson, Jagdish Bhagwati, Rudi Dornbusch, and a few other celebrated economists sold the nation (and President Clinton) on a policy that favored the rich and for which there was no popular demand. That policy was embodied in Nafta and Gatt, probably the two most consequential pieces of legislation of the last twenty years.

The low point was reached when Paul Samuelson, the dean of American economists, stood up in the East Room of the White House on the eve of the Nafta vote and told the country that there was no case on record of tariffs causing wages to rise -- implying that American working people had nothing to fear. But as Samuelson himself knew full well there were very good reasons to fear that removing barriers to trade with low-wage countries like Mexico and China would cause American wages to fall.

In fact a couple of years later Samuelson admitted as much in an interview in The Economist. He said that "of course" American workers were now in wage competition with workers in China, referencing his own "factor price equalization theorem."

Krugman knew all about factor price equalization theory too of course and, I suspect, now feels a little guilty about the role he played in that public policy drama. It's still not too late to fess up, Paul, if only in the name of intellectual honesty. There's a case for the re-imposition of tariffs on imports from China, at least until we can figure out how to implement a graduated expenditure tax and use the proceeds to subsidize wages.

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

Are you trying to start a storm??

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

Question: there was no case on record of tariffs causing wages to rise I don't get why Samuelson would say this. It would seem that he would say, if he wanted to be reassuring that there was no case on record of the removal of tariffs causing wages to fall.

Or was he trying to say that protectionism in the form of tariffs was no guarantee that wages would rise?

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Yikes!

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

FYI, Krugman did fess-up after a fashion. His excuse is that people misunderstood the real reason for NAFTA.

"Bottom line? Free trade was pushed not because of any sincerely anticipated economic benefits, but to serve an extraneous foreign policy agenda. To his credit, Krugman later admitted the utter chicanery of it all, writing in The New Democrat in 1996 that:

The agreement was sold under false pretences. Over the protests of most economists, the Clinton Administration chose to promote NAFTA as a jobs-creation program. Based on little more than guesswork, a few economists argued that NAFTA would boost our trade surplus with Mexico, and thus produce a net gain in jobs. With utterly spurious precision, the administration settled on a figure of 200,000 jobs created—and this became the core of the NAFTA sales pitch.
NAFTA was sold in Mexico as Mexico’s ticket to the big time. Mexicans were told they were choosing between gradually converging with America’s advanced economy and regressing to the status of a backwater like neighboring Guatemala.""

source

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

I bid 1000 pesos mexicanos for guess who.

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

Cheese 'n' rice. Reason gave him an eight-page interview?

My associates and I bid 2000 quatloos.

Actually, why should we bid on him? He rarely ever comes on anymore. We should save our money for the obnoxious and too-frequent.

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

Amazingly, I had never heard of that. (Thought I was aware of everything to do with S. King.)

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

Good one.

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

Now you've got me thinking about NAFTA. Here's an interesting article

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

Well worth it's weight in electrons to hit pay dirt like this about fictitious Mexicans fictitiously drunk in a fictitious bar that Mickey's been told about and whose fictitious sentiments about a ficticious reconquista" he wants us to take "seriously":

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

LOL!

It's almost hard to imagine how he didn't win a Senate seat as a Democrat.

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

Lifting barriers is the opposite of top-down, it's the barriers that are top-down. Also the case for free-trade has little to do with job-creation or job-destruction.

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

But the larger point is that Samuelson, Krugman and BornagainDem think/thought that the effects of NAFTA could be predicted and ultimately measured accurately. I'll post this again hoping one of you economics types will read it.

I am 5'6"
 

I have met both Bob and Henry IRL. Bob is over 8 feet tall.

I think being tall makes you seem smarter. It's always an uphill slog...

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

I know that post very well. That's why I said the case for free-trade is not about (measuring) lost jobs or gained jobs.

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

I would pay good money to excommunicate Rich Lowry or Ramesh Ponnuru.

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

Oh, let's not be so harsh as to call it excommunication. Think of it as more like a buyout incentive for early retirement.

I'd contribute to the first fund and not to the second, if you're interested. I almost never mind Ramesh, even if I often disagree with him.

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

gotcha.

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

He was being disingenuous. As for his motivation, I suspect it was a cosmopolitan concern for the welfare of Third World societies which over-rode his concern for the welfare of working families in America. I can't prove that though. The fact that it favored the rich in this country was a side issue with him more than likely. It wasn't a side issue with the Republicans however. :) Without the liberal cover of economists like Samuelson and Krugman and liberal media like the NYT -- look up their coverage -- Nafta and Gatt would never have garnered the Democratic votes to pass. And Clinton would never have been persuaded.

Re: Speaking of Top Down Disasters
 

Well that's because, maybe, free trade is part of their principles. I know it sounds naive to think that any politician has principles but it could happen.

What I find interesting is that Krugman admitted that the whole idea had another agenda...again, the manipulation of the economy. That is his core principle.

Re: An Intimidating Level of Magnitude (Robert Wright & Henry Farrell)
 

I actually read most of that meager attempt at scholarship that badhat posted about the "job killing" stimulus, which of course came from a Mankiw link - which renders it suspect to begin with. It was pretty thin, even to my non-academic eyes. Here's a critique that pretty much destroys it...

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2...y-million.html

Re: Henry's bold proposal
 

With the exception of his adventures on Regnery, I agree.