16 responses to “Krugman’s 200 Dishonest Flacks”

1. 

   Mac G

   January 29, 2009 at 2:18 am

   Did these professors actually live through the last 8 years or not? The Bush tax cuts did nothing and the Reagan Revolution was a big fraud/ponzi scheme. It is positive that there are people out there with a difference of opinion but I am sure these professors are the same jokers who cheer leaded the housing bubble every step of the way and supported the financial instruments which led to this world depression.

   These free market fundamentalists have zero credibility. They remind me of the town drunk now preaching the virtues of sobriety.
2. 

   Rick DeMent

   January 29, 2009 at 7:07 am

   and one more time for the English impaired, Tax cuts are deficit spending. And it is also deficit spending not directly targeted at those industries posting the biggest declines.

   Tax cuts are deficit spending ….

   Say it again, say it till it’s part of your DNA, anyone telling you that deficit spending is bad and tax cuts are good is cognitively unable to grasp this issue.(and let me be clear, I’m not saying this is Verdon’s position. His writing is so bad it’s tough to figure out just what he is actually for.)
3. 

   Patrick T McGuire

   January 29, 2009 at 7:22 am

   Tax cuts are deficit spending ….

   Uh,no! Tax cuts are reduced income. Spending more than your income is deficit spending.

   There should be a requirement of at least a 5th grade education before one can post a comment here.
4. 

   odograph

   January 29, 2009 at 8:07 am

   You need to acknowledge the truth Steve, that the field of macroeconomics has failed us. Highlighting folk on one side of the break doesn’t do that, not unless your audience is up on the full drama.

   I might stop even collecting stories under “The Backlash Continues” now that they are so well acknowledged, now that the failure is so broadly accepted.
5. 

   G.A.Phillips

   January 29, 2009 at 9:29 am

   There should be a requirement of at least a 5th grade education before one can post a comment here.

   but I like posting here, I’m gonna tell Obama on you!!!!
6. 

   Michael

   January 29, 2009 at 9:44 am

   More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

   Maybe we should start a war.

   Oh wait…
7. 

   odograph

   January 29, 2009 at 10:01 am

   More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

   Maybe we should start a war.

   Oh wait…

   Exactly. One of our problems now is that the Bush years already had the levers pulled, trying as hard as they could for a deficit driven recovery. When tax cuts, deficit, and a war run 100% on debt dug this hole, what to do?

   I think the answer is that we have to deleverage. We have to scale back consumption and live within our real means, not the means we wish we had, or the means we could pretend we had with massive inflows of Chinese savings.

   But cut the patient off, and he might die. The economy might need some methadone during the withdrawal.
8. 

   Steve Plunk

   January 29, 2009 at 11:17 am

   Those who have weak arguments seek to quash debate by either declaring it already over or painting the opposition as partisan tools. Krugman wants no debate and stoops again.

   Spending stimulus and tax cuts both cause deficits. The question is which is the more effective path to economic recovery. An honest debate is necessary.
9. 

   Michael

   January 29, 2009 at 11:38 am

   Spending stimulus and tax cuts both cause deficits. The question is which is the more effective path to economic recovery. An honest debate is necessary.

   Depends on what is actually causing the economy to suffer. Can we have an honest debate about that first?
10. 

    Steve Verdon

    January 29, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Exactly. One of our problems now is that the Bush years already had the levers pulled, trying as hard as they could for a deficit driven recovery. When tax cuts, deficit, and a war run 100% on debt dug this hole, what to do?

    So your thesis is that the tax cuts, deficit spending and the war in Iraq are the cause for the financial/real estate meltdown? Really?

    I think the answer is that we have to deleverage. We have to scale back consumption and live within our real means, not the means we wish we had, or the means we could pretend we had with massive inflows of Chinese savings.

    But cut the patient off, and he might die. The economy might need some methadone during the withdrawal.

    Interesting analogy, but your “methadone” is really the drug that got us in to trouble in the first place…using your analogy. If “methadone” is big government spending it is that chinese savings you noted. Further, it is an attempt to try and get back to the level of consumption that was unsustainable to your analogy. Actually, a crappy analogy.

    Depends on what is actually causing the economy to suffer. Can we have an honest debate about that first?

    So it was all the Bush tax cuts? Really? Care to explain that mechanism?
11. 

    Michael

    January 29, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    So it was all the Bush tax cuts? Really? Care to explain that mechanism?

    Slow down there, Steve, I wasn’t making any accusations towards anybody.

    I honestly don’t know what the hell the actual problem is now, people are losing their jobs because nobody is buying from their company, because people have less money, because they’re losing their job, because…

    All the pieces of the machine are there, it’s just not moving. I don’t care anymore what made it stop, what’s preventing it from starting again?
12. 

    Drew

    January 29, 2009 at 2:25 pm

    and one more time for the mentally impaired, Spending in excess of revenue is deficit spending.

    Say it again, say it till it’s part of your DNA, anyone telling you that deficit spending is bad but spending is good is cognitively unable to grasp this issue.(and let me be clear, I’m not saying this is DeMents position. His writing is so bad it’s tough to figure out just what he is actually for.)
13. 

    odograph

    January 29, 2009 at 5:08 pm

    Steve, I was down on debt and down on consumption before it was popular. Well, it still isn’t popular, is it?

    Are you actually ready for the hard crash in American consumerism that you are asking for?

    (I actually am for that simpler and less debt ridden life, I’m just open to the idea of doing it in a curve and not a crash.)
14. 

    Steve Verdon

    January 29, 2009 at 6:17 pm

    Odograph,

    Don’t mistake my take on your analogy as my actual position.

    My thinking is as follows:

    1. We are going to have a tough recession.
    2. The stimulus spending wont do much if any good.
    3. In the end we’ll be pretty much where we would have been if nothing was done, but with a whole bunch of new debt.

    So tell me again how you favor less debt yet at the same time increasing debt?

    Oh, and recall back during the previous recession how many attacked Bush for his tax cuts that simply “returned us to trend”? That is what this bill is supposed to do. Why was Bush’s bad and this one good? We were in a recession and Bush’s reasons may have been wrong but the timing was fortuitous.
15. 

    odograph

    January 29, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    So tell me again how you favor less debt yet at the same time increasing debt?

    A step function as opposed to a cliff?

    On the tax cuts, my horror was at the Nordquisting of the party (“I don’t care about X, as long as I get my tax cut”).
16. 

    Rick DeMent

    January 30, 2009 at 8:08 am

    Drew,

    Sorry I wasn’t writing a blog post, it was a comment. As for what I am for I’m all for being honest about what we are talking about.

    Uh,no! Tax cuts are reduced income. Spending more than your income is deficit spending.

    There should be a requirement of at least a 5th grade education before one can post a comment here.

    But spending is not being reduced, no one has proposed reduced spending in the GOP other then vague noises about reducing entitlements and getting rid of pork (none of which will even start to match the lost revenue of the “tax cut”). So using your 5th grade education you can see that what the Republicans are proposing is borrowing money and giving it away based on the tax code. Viola! deficit spending.

    The truth is that all the parties are arguing about is how to distribute the money they plan on borrowing. It’s disingenuous to call the tax cuts anything other then deficit spending, just as it’s disingenuous to call the spending “stimulus”. The point of the spending will be to ease the pin of the contraction, and to make a down payment on needed infrastructure. The welfare checks disguised as tax cuts are the pain easing part.

    Oh, and recall back during the previous recession how many attacked Bush for his tax cuts that simply “returned us to trend”? That is what this bill is supposed to do. Why was Bush’s bad and this one good? We were in a recession and Bush’s reasons may have been wrong but the timing was fortuitous.

    I’m not happy about the tax cuts, didn’t like them then, don’t like them now. The problem is that foggy-headed thinking has made it so you can’t do deficit spending unless you’re willing to dress it up as a tax cut. Obama feels he has to put some “tax cut” in there to get bi-partisan support. I get that from a political perspective. from a policy perspective I am against using the tax code to address financial problems.

    If we need to spend, then spend. Let’s not kid ourselves about whats going on. I mean come on gang let’s remember that the first round of “tax cutting” was to “return tax money to taxpayers” because we were in surplus. That almost immediately morphed into a “growth and investment stimulus” when we discovered there would be no surplus. For crying out loud, “tax cuts” is there really anything they can’t do?
    And while we’re at it, let’s get down to brass tacks regarding “pork”. Pork is spending the other party gets to do and typically nothing more. Remember Tom Foley’s battle cry “my earmarks are pretty important.”