The current stimulus package making it's torturous way through both houses of Congress is like the saying..... what do you get when you ask a committee to put together a horse? A camel.
Nothing wrong with a camel, but the country needs a horse to start pulling us out of the economic ditch.
Paul Krugman's asks today in "The Destructive Center" (NY Times) .... "What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?
"A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished."
The centrists in the Senate just created a camel, and President Obama seems unable, or unwilling, to fix it.
Krugman opines, "One of the best features of the original plan was aid to cash-strapped state governments, which would have provided a quick boost to the economy while preserving essential services. But the centrists insisted on a $40 billion cut in that spending.
"The original plan also included badly needed spending on school construction; $16 billion of that spending was cut. It included aid to the unemployed, especially help in maintaining health care — cut. Food stamps — cut. All in all, more than $80 billion was cut from the plan, with the great bulk of those cuts falling on precisely the measures that would do the most to reduce the depth and pain of this slump.
"On the other hand, the centrists were apparently just fine with one of the worst provisions in the Senate bill, a tax credit for home buyers. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research calls this the 'flip your house to your brother' provision: it will cost a lot of money while doing nothing to help the economy.
"All in all, the centrists’ insistence on comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted will, if reflected in the final bill, lead to substantially lower employment and substantially more suffering."
It was Obama who lifted the flap so the "lower taxes" camel could poke it's nose into his change-we-can-believe-in tent. We are in this economic mess because the GOP rich-get-richer trickle-up policies cost trillions and didn't work.... and according Pulitzer-winning economist Krugman and many others, this camel of a bill isn't the economic horse we need now.
MSNBC's Chuck Todd puts a fine point on this today in his "First Read" posting.... many ask just "how the Obama White House and the Democratic committees allowed themselves to get worked over by the Republicans.... how did a Republican Party that had turned a budget surplus into a projected trillion-dollar deficit get away with becoming paragons of fiscal responsibility? "
Krugman points out, "After all, many people expected Mr. Obama to come out with a really strong stimulus plan, reflecting both the economy’s dire straits and his own electoral mandate.
Instead, however, he offered a plan that was clearly both too small and too heavily reliant on tax cuts.
"Why? Because he wanted the plan to have broad bipartisan support, and believed that it would. Not long ago administration strategists were talking about getting 80 or more votes in the Senate."
There's a lesson for Obama here. His high-minded attempt to build a bipartisanship tent ran into the "loyal" opposition's ideological take-no-prisoners stone wall.
Has Obama learned this lesson?
Evidently not. This weekend he was busy trying to saddle this unwieldy stimulus camel.... "Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands, the scale and scope of this plan is right,” he declared on Saturday.
As Krugman laments.... "No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t."
Showing posts with label Paul Krugman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Krugman. Show all posts
Monday, February 09, 2009
Monday, October 20, 2008
Joe Better Off With Obama
Listen up Joe.... today Nobel economist Paul Krugman tells us about "The Real Plumbers of Ohio." (NYTimes)
Krugman explains, "Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the 'silent majority,' the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn't like the social changes taking place."
This laid the foundation for the original everyman Joe, the G.O.P.'s "Joe six pack" .... "It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn't require any change in the product’s actual contents — in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever."
Fast forward to the 2008 presidential campaign. "John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it.
"Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the 'pro-America' parts of the country.... McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber... the centerpiece of his attack on Barack Obama’s economic proposals.
"And when it turned out that the right’s new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man?"
So.... what's the situation of the real plumbers of Ohio? In 2007.... the "Bush boom" years.... according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930. A far cry from the $250,000 income the wanna-be plumber Joe.... who himself earned $40,000 that year.... was querying Obama about.
And this is to say nothing about the lack of medical insurance available to employees, like plumbers, of small businesses, or the decreasing income, rising costs and home market squeeze since 2007.
Krugman asks.... "Who is really standing up for Ohio's plumbers?"
"McCain proposes continuing Bush’s policies in all essential respects, and he shares Bush’s anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy.
"What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Obama? Well, Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets...."
Krugman concludes, "I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.
"But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans."
November 4. Vote. It matters!
Krugman explains, "Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the 'silent majority,' the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn't like the social changes taking place."
This laid the foundation for the original everyman Joe, the G.O.P.'s "Joe six pack" .... "It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn't require any change in the product’s actual contents — in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever."
Fast forward to the 2008 presidential campaign. "John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it.
"Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the 'pro-America' parts of the country.... McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber... the centerpiece of his attack on Barack Obama’s economic proposals.
"And when it turned out that the right’s new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man?"
So.... what's the situation of the real plumbers of Ohio? In 2007.... the "Bush boom" years.... according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930. A far cry from the $250,000 income the wanna-be plumber Joe.... who himself earned $40,000 that year.... was querying Obama about.
And this is to say nothing about the lack of medical insurance available to employees, like plumbers, of small businesses, or the decreasing income, rising costs and home market squeeze since 2007.
Krugman asks.... "Who is really standing up for Ohio's plumbers?"
"McCain proposes continuing Bush’s policies in all essential respects, and he shares Bush’s anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy.
"What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Obama? Well, Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets...."
Krugman concludes, "I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.
"But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans."
November 4. Vote. It matters!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Gordon is "Nobel" Krugman's Man
Congratulations to American economist Paul Krugman whose credentials were already formidable.... professor at Princeton University, columnist for The New York Times... who today was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics.
And today Krugman has also written an op-ed, "Gordon Does Good" (NYTimes) in which he asks, "Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?"
Not George Bush. Not Henry Paulson. Not Ben Bernanke. But our long-suffering staunch ally, Britain's Gordon in concert with his chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, by thinking clearly and acting quickly.
Krugman explains, "On Wednesday, Mr. Brown’s officials announced a plan for major equity injections into British banks, backed up by guarantees on bank debt that should get lending among banks, a crucial part of the financial mechanism, running again. And the first major commitment of funds will come on Monday — five days after the plan’s announcement."
"And," Krugman continues, "whaddya know, Mr. Paulson — after arguably wasting several precious weeks — has also reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities (although he still seems to be moving with painful slowness)."
For anyone who has watched the painful politicalization of our government by The Decider, even of the office of Attorney General, it'll come as no surprise that Krugman believes that... "It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Paulson’s initial response was distorted by ideology. Remember, he works for an administration whose philosophy of government can be summed up as 'private good, public bad,' which must have made it hard to face up to the need for partial government ownership of the financial sector."
Hopefully Krugman is on Barack Obama's short list for Treasury secretary. In the meantime, on a day when Krugman is receiving bouquets for his prestigious Nobel prize, he is also throwing bouquets of his own.... "Luckily for the world economy, however, Gordon Brown and his officials are making sense. And they may have shown us the way through this crisis.
If we can all just keep a stiff upper lip.
And today Krugman has also written an op-ed, "Gordon Does Good" (NYTimes) in which he asks, "Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?"
Not George Bush. Not Henry Paulson. Not Ben Bernanke. But our long-suffering staunch ally, Britain's Gordon in concert with his chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, by thinking clearly and acting quickly.
Krugman explains, "On Wednesday, Mr. Brown’s officials announced a plan for major equity injections into British banks, backed up by guarantees on bank debt that should get lending among banks, a crucial part of the financial mechanism, running again. And the first major commitment of funds will come on Monday — five days after the plan’s announcement."
"And," Krugman continues, "whaddya know, Mr. Paulson — after arguably wasting several precious weeks — has also reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities (although he still seems to be moving with painful slowness)."
For anyone who has watched the painful politicalization of our government by The Decider, even of the office of Attorney General, it'll come as no surprise that Krugman believes that... "It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Paulson’s initial response was distorted by ideology. Remember, he works for an administration whose philosophy of government can be summed up as 'private good, public bad,' which must have made it hard to face up to the need for partial government ownership of the financial sector."
Hopefully Krugman is on Barack Obama's short list for Treasury secretary. In the meantime, on a day when Krugman is receiving bouquets for his prestigious Nobel prize, he is also throwing bouquets of his own.... "Luckily for the world economy, however, Gordon Brown and his officials are making sense. And they may have shown us the way through this crisis.
If we can all just keep a stiff upper lip.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Slow Down the $700 Billion Railroad
It's hard to get ones mind around $700+ billion, the size of the latest proposed bailout of Wall Street investment bankers who recklessly and deliberately ravaged the economy for personal gain.... without government intervention and oversight.
Now that same government, the Bush administration, wants to make their Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, Tsar of the Economic Universe.
Paulson is demanding a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached.... with nothing required of those being bailed out.... and dictatorial authority.
The Decider and The Dictator want Congress to decide now.
Hurry, hurry.... the financial-collapse train is bearing down on us. Give the totally inept Bush administration unfettered power and trust Rumsfel.... umm.... Paulson to do the right thing. Sound familiar? Isn't this how we got into the other big Bush mess, Iraq.
As Paul Krugman points out in his New York Times op-ed today, Cash for Trash, Paulson "is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis 'contained,' and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing?"
And, in line with the closed-door, secretive, subpoena-ignoring, won't-be-sworn-to-tell-the-truth Bush administration's modus operandi, mindbogglingly, Paulson is demanding also immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
This is unacceptable.
Has Congress.... the taxpayers elected representatives who are supposed to look out for the interests of Main Street, not Wall Street.... learned it's lesson?
Or, will they once again be railroaded without insisting on prudent safeguards, curbs on power, and that blatantly discarded concept.... ACCOUNTABILITY!
Now that same government, the Bush administration, wants to make their Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, Tsar of the Economic Universe.
Paulson is demanding a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached.... with nothing required of those being bailed out.... and dictatorial authority.
The Decider and The Dictator want Congress to decide now.
Hurry, hurry.... the financial-collapse train is bearing down on us. Give the totally inept Bush administration unfettered power and trust Rumsfel.... umm.... Paulson to do the right thing. Sound familiar? Isn't this how we got into the other big Bush mess, Iraq.
As Paul Krugman points out in his New York Times op-ed today, Cash for Trash, Paulson "is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis 'contained,' and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing?"
And, in line with the closed-door, secretive, subpoena-ignoring, won't-be-sworn-to-tell-the-truth Bush administration's modus operandi, mindbogglingly, Paulson is demanding also immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
This is unacceptable.
Has Congress.... the taxpayers elected representatives who are supposed to look out for the interests of Main Street, not Wall Street.... learned it's lesson?
Or, will they once again be railroaded without insisting on prudent safeguards, curbs on power, and that blatantly discarded concept.... ACCOUNTABILITY!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Lehman Trickles Down and Out
Lehman Brothers has filed for bankruptcy becoming the largest financial firm to fail in the credit crisis.... a crisis fueled by shoddy sub-prime lending practices.... producing "Massive Shifts on Wall Street" (WaPo) .... and a domino effect globally as "World Stock Markets Sink.." on the news. (WaPo)
We now know the reality of the Bush/McSame "trickle down" economy where corporations rule.
It's our savings and stock portfolios that have been trickling down and away as the Bush administration's unregulated house-of-cards economy implodes, while greedy fat cats in investment banks and brokerage houses reap obscene benefits from their risky business practices and then exit unscathed leaving stockholders and taxpayers holding the trickled-away bag.
Paul Krugman in his op-ed in The New York Times calls this trickle-down scam "Financial Russian Roulette."
In our new Russian Roulette economy, the old world of banking in which "institutions housed in big marble buildings accepted deposits and lent the money out to long-term clients, has largely vanished, replaced by what is widely called the 'shadow banking system.'"
The marbled-hall banks now play only a minor role in channeling funds, "most of the business of finance is carried out through complex deals arranged by 'nondepository' institutions, institutions like the late lamented Bear Stearns - and Lehman," Krugman explains.
While there were many warning signs.... like housing bankruptcies on a massive scale, and the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns six months ago.... still the Bush administration didn't respond by putting in place a mechanism for orderly liquidation of troubled banks, or at the very least regulation of the shadow banking system. "If institutions need to be rescued like banks, they should be regulated like banks," Krugman reasons.
Instead, The Denier and McSame just keep double-talking, "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." After all, McSame wants the White House and The Denier wants his legacy... so don't expect any economic straight talk about the real effects of their corporate-loving trickle-down debacle.
November.
We now know the reality of the Bush/McSame "trickle down" economy where corporations rule.
It's our savings and stock portfolios that have been trickling down and away as the Bush administration's unregulated house-of-cards economy implodes, while greedy fat cats in investment banks and brokerage houses reap obscene benefits from their risky business practices and then exit unscathed leaving stockholders and taxpayers holding the trickled-away bag.
Paul Krugman in his op-ed in The New York Times calls this trickle-down scam "Financial Russian Roulette."
In our new Russian Roulette economy, the old world of banking in which "institutions housed in big marble buildings accepted deposits and lent the money out to long-term clients, has largely vanished, replaced by what is widely called the 'shadow banking system.'"
The marbled-hall banks now play only a minor role in channeling funds, "most of the business of finance is carried out through complex deals arranged by 'nondepository' institutions, institutions like the late lamented Bear Stearns - and Lehman," Krugman explains.
While there were many warning signs.... like housing bankruptcies on a massive scale, and the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns six months ago.... still the Bush administration didn't respond by putting in place a mechanism for orderly liquidation of troubled banks, or at the very least regulation of the shadow banking system. "If institutions need to be rescued like banks, they should be regulated like banks," Krugman reasons.
Instead, The Denier and McSame just keep double-talking, "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." After all, McSame wants the White House and The Denier wants his legacy... so don't expect any economic straight talk about the real effects of their corporate-loving trickle-down debacle.
November.
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