This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Paul Krugman Is "Really, Really Worried" That He Might Have Screwed Up Japan
Late last year, a very important and very “powerful” man took a field trip to Japan to observe Keynesian insanity prowling around in its natural habitat...
That’s right, last November Paul Krugman - the mere mention of whom is enough to strike terror in the hearts and minds of the sane - found himself in a limousine with Japanese economist Etsuro Honda who was intent on securing the Nobel laureate's help in convincing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to delay a planned (and prudent) sales tax hike. As a reminder, here’s how Bloomberg described the “historic” series of events:
When Japanese economist Etsuro Honda heard that Paul Krugman was planning a visit to Tokyo, he saw an opportunity to seize the advantage in Japan’s sales-tax debate.
With a December deadline approaching, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was considering whether to go ahead with a 2015 boost to the consumption levy. Evidence was mounting that the world’s third-largest economy was struggling to shake off the blow from raising the rate in April, which had triggered Japan’s deepest quarterly contraction since the global credit crisis.
Honda, 59, an academic who’s known Abe, 60, for three decades and serves as an economic adviser to the prime minister, had opposed the April move and was telling him to delay the next one. Enter Krugman, the Nobel laureate who had been writing columns on why a postponement was needed.
It was in a limousine ride from the Imperial Hotel that Honda told Krugman, 61, what was at stake for the meeting. The economist, who’s now heading to the City University of New York from Princeton University, had the chance to help convince the prime minister that he had to put off the 2015 increase.
The concept of outside opinion influencing Japanese decision-making is known as gaiatsu, or foreign pressure, in Japanese, and has historical precedent since at least the arrival of U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry’s squadron in 1853 in Tokyo Bay, which led to an opening in the nation’s trade policies. Gaiatsu also has been used as cover by Japanese officials when they’ve pushed through controversial measures.
Krugman plays down his role, saying the Nov. 6 meeting with Abe “was very straightforward.”
But Honda tells a different story:
“That nailed Abe’s decision -- Krugman was Krugman, he was so powerful.”
Yes, “Krugman was Krugman,” which means everyone in attendance was subjected to 40 minutes of crisply-worded nonsense and unlike Deputy Riksbank Governor Per Jansson - who, earlier this year, suggested that Krugman “write fewer articles and have more of a look at the data” after Krugman essentially accused Sweden’s central bank of being an evil cabal of job-hating heretics motivated by an overwhelming (not to mention completely inexplicable) desire to perpetuate global inequality by enriching creditors at the expense of impoverished debtors - no one had the good sense to tell him to shut up.
Sure enough, the tax hike was delayed.
Just days earlier, Krugman penned the following laughably ridiculous words in a blog post explaining why Japan should avoid doing anything that could be mistaken for a rollback of Abenomics:
When I see, say, the IMF inserting into its latest Japan survey a section titled “Maintaining focus on fiscal sustainability” my heart sinks (and so, maybe, does Abenomics); [even though] it’s hard to argue against sustainability.
It sure is, but Krugman will do it and powerful people will unfortunately listen and by the time everyone realizes that efforts to micromanage economic outcomes and smooth out the business cycle by cranking up the printing presses and gluing rates to the zero lower bound have failed it will be far, far too late to normalize which of course is precisely what's unfolding across the world today.
We retold the story presented above because on Thursday a very funny thing happened: Paul Krugman told an audience in Tokyo that he is "really, really worried" that Abenomics might fail. Here's Bloomberg:
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said risks of failure are growing for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s "Abenomics" campaign to end Japan’s two-decade slump.
“I’m still really, really worried,” Krugman said at a conference in Tokyo on Wednesday. A big problem remains building enough momentum in the economy to escape deflation, he said.
“Japan has spent a long time in this deflationary trouble," said Krugman, who helped convince Abe to delay another planned increase in the nation’s sales tax after a hike in April last year pushed the world’s third-biggest economy into a recession.
Japan needs to reach a point where everyone believes that it has pulled out of deflation, he said. "And then if that can be believed, then it may be able to stay out of trouble thereafter,” he said.
Reading that, we're reminded of BoJ cheif Haruhiko Kuroda, who, back in June, hilariously likened himself and his fellow DM central bankers to Peter Pan when he said the following about what's needed to perpetuate the central bank omnipotence myth:
"I trust that many of you are familiar with the story of Peter Pan, in which it says, 'the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.' Yes, what we need is a positive attitude and conviction."
What Krugman and Pan are both tacitly admitting, is that Abenomics has demonstrably failed and the only thing that can save Japan now is for everyone to suspend disbelief in the face of voluminous evidence that what Kuroda and Abe (at Krugman's behest) are doing simply isn't working.
And because "Krugman is Krugman", we're never more than one Google search away from a hilarious soundbite from the New York Times blog archives, and so it's with great pleasure and with everything said above in mind, that we leave you with the following excerpt from a Krugman classic entitled "Why Keynes Is Slowing Winning" ca. 2014:
"Why does the tide finally seem to be turning? Partly, I think, it’s just a matter of time; after six years it’s becoming hard not to notice that the anti-Keynesians have been wrong about everything. And the refusal of almost everyone on the anti-Keynesian side to admit any kind of error has gradually made them look ridiculous."
»
- 64336 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
He might be an economist but it does not make him a mathematician.
Japan can't inflate if every other country in the world is fucking printing. They got around be9ng bust for so long because others allowed them to do so.
IN A CLOSED SUM GAME THAT IS THE ECONOMY JAPAN IS FINDING IT HARDER BECAUSE EVERY OTHER CENTRAL BANKER IS TRYING TO PRESERVE THEIR OWN ASSES.
What does that imply? More important than Japanese economics is that no country if it adopts economic effciency > 100% your working people the very bedrock of the economy can never earn enough. WAKE THE FUCK UP KRUGMAN.
Your deflation nemesis is hitting and printing makes no difference TBH the issue is not in the money, the sovereign debt is just a measure of how you failed to address the issue over decades NOBEL LAUREATE... economic efficiency > 100% and growing.
Can't you taste the answer Krugman if you open your eyes ... nah you are blind, lost the plot you can go down in infamy as the final barrier to be burned before humanity can start to advance again.
Nationalism and militarism is on the rise in Japan's cabinets and places of power.
Unlimited money and debt doesn't fuel those things, right Paul Krugman?
Paul, Paul, Paul, you went to Japan as Krugman .. the Nobel Prize economist... you ended up in Japan as Screwman.. the No Nothing economist...
"That’s right, last November Paul Krugman"
NSA, November FFS, i Want this guy bugged monitired 24/7 so at least I can get uptodate news when you monitor me as a pleb.
I think he fooled Japan intentionally to buy US treasuries. To avoid collapse of US since China wont do anymore. I think this was his real reason for argument and he couldnt care less about Japan. Right now Japan is the biggest US buyer and hold with China biggest chunk of junk.
Issue loans at -20% interest. I would lever up to my eyeballs. It would be so exciting!
here kitty, kitty
I bet he swallowed and is now worried that he might be pregnant with an asian baby
It's not so much the hampster features, or the twisted and warped view on money/economics. It's more the fact he is the leader of a very big fucking horde of the bastards.
I want to deny this creature air, then dismember limbs and feed them to big, ugly smelly crows.
That would make me feel better :)
Krugman is a A hole. plain and simple.
Like most Jewish scholars he it totally overrated.
Noam Chomsky is about the only guy I have respect for.
>40 minutes of crisply-worded nonsense
And Fred2 charts that don't work at all, that would get a freshman flunked out of intro economics.
Yeah, I read this article 4-5 times. Not kidding.
Krugmann is John Maynard Keynes reincarnated.
I studied Keynes biography, and found nothing about " cat herding" though.
That is all.
Keynes was so full of it that not even Satan wanted him so he returned him as Krugmann.
Here is one you can't blame on Bush....
Death of the Pacific Ocean.
Instead of MSM covering this world changing event, last week they give airtime to "Big Blue" from like 2006 which portends to show an ocean vibrant with life.
Instead reality is the Pacific is dying, mass animal deaths, even NOAA declaring an UME Unusual Mortality Event. Attacked from several directions, with Fukushima as the last straw.
Here is 61 pages of links to articles that show the progression of this disaster since 2011.
Spread the word. Its time to wake up, or else its "wake up, time to die"
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2015/09/61-pages-of-stories-of-deat...
A truly free market struggles to create bubbles the size that governments can create.
"Japan needs to reach a point where everyone believes that it has pulled out of deflation, he said. "And then if that can be believed, then it may be able to stay out of trouble thereafter,” he said."
That in a nutshell is the fucking logic of these fuck witted cunts who claim to be fucking professors.
In other words, if every cunt believed in fairys like I do then the fucking fairies will be real.
Any fucker wasting time going to conferences where cunts like krugshit spout fucking inane bollocks like that deserve to fucking starve to death.
Krugman is a parasite.
If we had a communist leader Krugman would be his buddy.
Japan market stimulation can come from attacking USA again...
screw u FED and all your shills
“No, it doesn’t work–among other things because there are some idiots who’ve won Nobels.” Krugman
Well, he is right on the money here.
There is no Nobel prize for economics. Nobel knew fine well that Economics wasn't worthy of a prize.
It is instead
Tyler does not know what Keynesian economic policy is. Hint: It is mostly a fiscal approach, not a monetary-obsession as the Japanese and USA have engaged in (ie Trickle-down economics).
Fiscal spending to spur economic stability in down turns and a austerity policy in the good times is what denotes Keynesian policy from what we see today.
It's really quite simple. He's a narcissist who would see the world a smoking ruin before he admits he's wrong.
Banking attract sociopaths, Politics attracts sociopaths and narcisists and academia attracts narcisists.
We really need to find a way to stop nutters from getting to positions of power.
C'mon this is a shallow spin. Abe & his Jap Govt may be stupid but not that asinine to be led on a leash by Krugman. It is a case that the elite has run out of options with peak debts. They choose one day to let the private sector bears the brunt of deflation and ease the pains of the People and reverse whenever the pains are unbearable. This is simple "kicking the cans down the road"...not rcocket science to understand. Krugman & Others are seasonal stars in their kabukis. Try harder..Zhers are not Retards.
Krugman is an idiot. The reason politicians listen to his advise is because it gives them more political power and delays resolution of the debt bubble into the future
GREATEST POST EVER!
So snarky, so raw, so thorough. What a total smackdown.
Thank you, Tyler(s)!