Thursday, September 5, 2013

Paul Krugman, "Years of Tragic Waste": Obama Takes It on the Chin from Krugman

When it rains, it pours, and it's now monsoon season for Obama.

Sullied by the NSA, IRS and Benghazi scandals, soiled by his flimsy chemical weapons "red line," Obama is today taking it on the chin from long-time friend and ally Paul Krugman, who has scathing words for the president's economic policy. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Years of Tragic Waste" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/opinion/krugman-years-of-tragic-waste.html), Paul Krugman describes the "immensity" of this debacle:

"Some of that immensity can be measured in dollars and cents. Reasonable measures of the 'output gap' over the past five years — the difference between the value of goods and services America could and should have produced and what it actually produced — run well over $2 trillion. That’s trillions of dollars of pure waste, which we will never get back.

Behind that financial waste lies an even more tragic waste of human potential. Before the financial crisis, 63 percent of adult Americans were employed; that number quickly plunged to less than 59 percent, and there it remains."

And there it will remain, unless unemployment again grows worse, which is certainly possible. As recently reported by Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/us-economy-durables-idUSBRE97P0FL20130826):

"Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods recorded their biggest drop in nearly a year in July and a gauge of planned business spending on capital goods also tumbled, casting a shadow over the economy early in the third quarter."

Krugman's conclusion:

"Right now, Washington seems divided between Republicans who denounce any kind of government action — who insist that all the policies and programs that mitigated the crisis actually made it worse — and Obama loyalists who insist that they did a great job because the world didn’t totally melt down.

Obviously, the Obama people are less wrong than the Republicans. But, by any objective standard, U.S. economic policy since Lehman has been an astonishing, horrifying failure."

"Astonishing, horrifying failure"? Hey, what happened to "hope, change and forward"?

Yes, Paul is no longer pleased with the president.

No, history is not going to be kind to the first invertebrate to occupy the Oval Office.

3 comments:

  1. No, honestly, Krugman wasn't enthusiastic about Obama. He is just a good Democratic soldier who marches.

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  2. Well, this was my evaluation of Obama (long before the first elections) - bad for the country, bad for the world. He shouldn't have been President. He's an attractive individual and he could be fine elsewhere, but not in this position.
    BTW, the media ignored an interesting detail. During his first inauguration, two of his classmates in Indonesia recalled their childhood ambitions: one boy wanted to be a general, one wanted to be a banker, but Obama wanted to be President "because they both would serve HIM." If it's true (memories are not always reliable), we have a problem right there.

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  3. On the bright side, perhaps the global economy will be spared an Obama nomination of Larry Summers to chair the Federal Reserve Bank.

    That is how I read Krugman's 'shot across the bow', in these excerpts. Did he blame Geithner for the Lehman Bros collapse?

    k

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