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Guest Post: Letter To George Washington, Regarding Paul Krugman
By Gonzalo Lira
Letter To George Washington, Regarding Paul Krugman
I wrote a letter to George Washington, the pseudonym for a well-known finance and economics blogger, with regards to a blog post he wrote on August 15.
The letter might sound a bit like score-settling—but there is a serious point to it, a point that applies to both the Left and the Right. So be patient.
Here is my letter to him in full, with a few light editorial touch-ups:
Hi GW,
It’s been so long!
I’ve been skiing like a madman down here in Chile—but I did catch something you wrote, which I’d like to comment on, now that a blizzard has hit the slopes and I’m stuck inside with not much to do.
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| Paul Krugman |
You wrote a post yesterday, picked up by Zero Hedge and others, pointing out that Paul Krugman is advocating war as a fiscal stimulus solution.
You pointed out that this position he holds is not only blatantly immoral, it is a position Krugman seems to have no problem openly pushing—your unspoken implication being that this is disastrous, considering how influential Krugman is in major policy circles.
With regards to K. pushing for war as the ultimate Keynesian economic solution: I hate to say “I told you so”—but in this case—
I told you so!
(Cheers, mate.)
I pointed out the exact same thing almost a year ago: That once you strip away all the B.S., it turns out that Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, Keynesian par excellence and darling of the Wonk Left, is essentially pushing for war as the ultimate Keynesian stimulus solution.
For pointing this out, I got slimed by the Krugman Defense Industry (KDI).
My original post, pointing out that Krugman advocates war as the fiscal stimulus and solution, was called Why I Despise Krugman. I posted it on September 28, 2010.
And the response—i.e., the sliming—by the KDI was pretty severe and swift, considering that at the time, I was a lowly blogger with not much of a following:
• The sliming by Andrew Leonard at Salon: The Dumbest Attack on Krugman—Ever
• The sliming by Brad DeLong, Krugman's main flunky: Something Totally Batshit Insane Shows Up on Henry Blodget's Clusterstock
DeLong’s reference to Henry Blodget is because that’s where my piece was picked up. Fact is, DeLong seems to have lobbied Blodget to drop me from Clusterstock and Business Insider—and it worked, too, because although Henry didn’t cut me, my relationship with Joe Weisenthal, Blodget’s editor, was permanently soured because of this incident.
![]() |
| Joe Weisenthal |
Weisenthal would go on to make my life fairly unpleasant insofar as Business Insider was concerned: Arbitrary edits that hurt my posts, yanking my pieces on a whim, then running pieces by other people that plagiarized my work.
Yeah, you read right: Weisenthal knowingly ran posts by other people that blatantly plagiarized my work. I mean Weisenthal did everything an editor can do to antagonize a writer without actually having the balls to drop him outright.
Naturally, I stopped writing for their outfit shortly thereafter.
What DeLong did was pretty mean, if you think about it: Lobbying to get an up-and-coming blogger to lose his spot at the table. BI and Clusterstock were running my pieces with my name in the title—a featured editorialist. Hey, that’s something: That’s the start of name-brand recognition.
But DeLong especially didn’t like me—because I nailed his precious Krugman. So I got shafted by some back-door shenanigans, which I experienced as passive-aggressive nonsense from Weisenthal.
Think of it from especially poor Weisenthal’s position: As a professional editor, he wants a job in the future. Business Insider might fold some day, but Weisenthal will still need a paycheck—after all, he wants a career, and he’s a young guy: In his estimation, he can’t stand on principle. He can’t afford to antagonize putatively well-respected, influential people like DeLong and Krugman. Hell, he might need to interview them some day—he might need to ask them for a job some day.
So from Weisenthal’s position, what’s passively-aggressively sabotaging a relationship with a new blogger, compared to antagonizing people who will influence your career?
Nothing.
Now, if I’m being honest—and I try to be—my first piece wasn’t without fault: Both Leonard’s piece and DeLong’s piece nailed me on something that was actually true—and a severe weakness in my original post:
I had not carefully cited any sources showing that Krugman was advocating war as a fiscal stimulus. It’s obvious that that’s Krugman’s position—but I hadn’t cited sources. Thus my piece could be attacked and dismissed as a mere rant, rather than an argument.
And so like Talmudic scholars dismissing an obviously true statement—say, that the sky is blue—because I didn’t cite any sources, they gathered up their righteousness like the robe of an ancient sage, and nailed me for it.
You know me: I’m not one to take things lying down. But I’m also not one to go off half-cocked. I did what was retrospectively the smart thing—I waited.
Fate was kind, and gave me an opportunity shortly thereafter:
David Broder, the Washington Post columnist, wrote a piece basically advocating war with Iran, as a way to politically unify the country. (Yeah, insane, I know.)
The KDI—in the shape of a DeLong rant—went to town on Broder.
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| Brad DeLong |
Of course, DeLong’s hit piece on Broder was completely hypocritical. After all, Broder was advocating a war for political benefit, while Krugman was advocating war for economic benefit.
DeLong—rightfully—went medieval on Broder’s ass. But insofar as Krugman’s advocacy of the same “War Is The Solution” stance, DeLong was smiling and silently panting like a lapdog in the arms of a society lady stroking his teeny-tiny head.
In other words, DeLong left the door wide open for me—so I stepped through it.
I called my piece The Contradictions In The Life of A Fluffer.
And this time around, I did the smart thing: I referenced Krugman up the yin-yang.
Hell, at Dartmouth I got taught close reading and hard-core analysis when I studied philosophy—might as well use that god-forsakenly expensive education, right?
So I did: I did a close read of Krugman’s bullshit, and I made it a point of really catching every little nuance of everything Krugman has said, showing how the K-ster Monster from Princeton Junction is essentially advocating war in order to stimulate the economy.
As a side benefit, I also slimed DeLong so bad, he actually wound up changing the name of his blog for a while, as its original title—“Grasping Reality With Both Hands”—was a bit too apropos to my point that DeLong was Krugman’s fluffer. (If you don’t know what a fluffer is, read the piece.)
Yves Smith over at naked capitalism sent me a private e-mail, telling me that some people had commented to her about the fluffer piece, saying they felt actually sorry for DeLong after they read it.
I thought, “Yeay team!” (What can I say: I’m a vindictive bastard.)
The whole experience was an object lesson in the way the blogosphere works: How the best writing in the world, the most thoughtful analysis in the world, won’t necessarily get you mainstream notice—because there are gatekeepers who keep the riffraff out.
The KDI—in the shape of people like Brad DeLong in academia, and Andrew Leonard at Salon in the world of journalism—are the people who keep out the riffraff.
It also made me realize—because of Weisenthal’s passive-aggressive reaction that directly led to my exiting Business Insider—how insidious the whole Krugman Defense Industry really is: They are the self-appointed gatekeepers, the sentries you have to pass, in order to reach the mainstream, and thus have influence on the general conversation.
Because of this whole run in with the KDI, I no longer have a place in the mainstream discourse. I write my blog, get fairly big numbers, write what most people would consider thoughtful, intelligent posts—but I’m not considered “serious”. And therefore, none of my ideas or posts are discussed at levels where they might actually make a difference.
This gatekeeping by the KDI and other such cliques—mind you, on both the Left and the Right—keeps strong ideas from reaching the people with power: Ideas which might potentially help our society. And thus our society is poorer for it, because it cannot draw upon the best ideas in order to form a solution to a problem besetting us all: Only the ideas these cliques on both the Left and the Right allow to reach the table are considered—while everything else is automatically regarded as “fringe”.
For instance, I wrote a major piece of political philosophy—Why Democracies Will Always Go Bankrupt—which is essentially a valid, sound proof of something that’s been eluding economists for a couple of hundred years.
Yet nobody discusses it—in a very real sense, it doesn’t exist. Which is a shame, because it might help the discourse, and get our society closer to adopting a sane macro-economic standing.
I’ve been shut out of the mainstream. Which is fine by me on a personal level, but sad if you think about it on the level of social discourse: Tired ideas—like the KDI’s sacred Keynesianism, like the Right’s Corporatism—are repeated round and round, while fresh new ideas are locked out, and therefore never considered.
Thus new ideas cannot help the wider society—because they’re not allowed a place at the table.
And what’s worse, patently insane, blatantly immoral ideas—like Krugman’s notion about how war would fix all our economic problems, like the Right’s notion that what’s good for the banksters is good for America, when the exact opposite is closer to the truth—are allowed to grow like brain cancer on the body politic.
So I just wanted to tell you, Great Post!, as well as Watch Out! These people will come after you, if they can.
And if they can’t, they’ll ignore you as completely as if you didn’t exist. And to them, if you don’t exist, then your ideas don’t exist—and therefore aren’t worth repeating.
And thus your work will have no impact—and at the end of the day, isn’t impact what every writer wants? Don’t we want our ideas to help build a better society for us all?
As always, all the best,
GL
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WAR. (What is it good for?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX7V6FAoTLc
BTW I love shotgun rants. Blood all over the place, bodies parts here and there, just a tangled mess. Come to think of it, it's sort of like WAR.
deLong lobbied Blodget
let me tell you
Business Inisder is backed by Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer
and that says it all
We have always been at war with Eastasia
+Minitrue
war is nothing.
blue beam, bitchez.
real fucken stimulus.
http://azizonomics.com/2011/08/16/krugman-calls-for-alien-invasion/
this story is about a bloke
who thought he'd save us all
an economic genius
with vision and with gall
http://thepeakoilpoet.blogspot.com/2011/08/ode-to-paul-krugman.html
+ Doubleplusgoodminitrue
Ve vant ze gold back, Bernanke! Or ve'll cut off your chonson!
"Yeah and maybe we stomp on it and squoosh it, Bernanke..."
"Ve vant ze gold, Bernanke..."
"Ja and no funny stuff..."
Nice marmut, man.
Its Down there somewhere.
Too friggin shay!!
There's no buisness like war buisness I know (pause chorus for my cane and hat act) .... I wish I was skiing in Chile now... I miss valle Nevada ... It's hot out here....fool
I worked for a company for 10 years (against my moral judgement, but I let my checkbook speak louder than my brain until january of this year,) that was a defense contractor that claimed to provide innovative capabilities to government... I saw a participant in the very small network of 'you hire me I hire you to hire the guy across the street to hire me' produce nothing but 'reports' and 'feasibility studies' on crap that delivered nothing but documented crap to the government burn through 12 billion dollars in government 'directed funding' in the 10 years I was there. If the previous experience of the company prior to my arrival were the same (and I have no reason to believe it wasn't,) that means they exhausted roughly 15 billion dollars on actually... nothing other than keeping local people employed in an election buying boondoggle. We don't need 'official' stimulus to burn cash on creating ditch digging jobs... just look at your local government contractor... and their sub-sub-sub contractors... who sometimes end up being themselves... on the same projects.
edit: and I'll add that the 'quota' system established by the government to ensure that 'minority companies' and 'small disadvantaged businesses' also receive a chunk of the action... also sets up a bunch of middle men to receive some of the action... but they in turn source the prime company for some of the work and this actually means that a shit ton of extra money goes into the politically correct matrix, and ends up feeding the same mouths that would have had the money in the first place. Note that feasibility studies (a specialty of my former employer,) are actually equal pay for those who produce nothing (and say it's impossible) as those who figure out a way to solve the problem. How incredibly 'egaitarian' of our government!
It would be interesting to see how much money is spent on reports. I worked at NIH and was amazed after reading a fairly worthless report that the price tag was $500K. Why not just print off 150 blank pages with a nice looking cover page and buy me a Ferrari? That would be more productive.
War, the ultimate goal of the welfare state.
Socializing death and destruction.
To the benefit of the ruling elite.
Death is always better when it happens to someone else.
bodies parts here and there, just a tangled mess. Come to think of it, it's sort of like WAR
Or twister.
One man's pet stained carpet is another man's Twister.
Right foot brown.
That was the title of my law review note . . . .
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Kruggybear seems to be forgetting the 5 or 6 wars we are alerady fighting.
If war is what he wants, then Kruggybear can go first. I will be right behind him.
Yeah, I am one of the villiage idiots here, but this had me scratching my head too.
5+ hot wars. Dozens more intelligence theaters. 24x7 spy game grab ass over technology with our "freinds" and our "enemies". Plus homeland operations against tea party terror causing, hostage taking, hobbits. Then there are the folks that drink raw milk. Plus the war on drugs.
663.8 blillion defense budget in 2010. according to wikipedia, probably 30% more in actuality. And thatis just DoD.
Hillary and Panetta had a foriegn policy press conference today, that really looked like a awards banquet for the "whose who" of the NoVa defense/intelligence executives.
How much money do we need to spend and how many people need to be getting snuff'ed before kruggers things we are in proper war?
All of it.
Enough of the bottom ninety percent to result in an unemployment rate of three to four percent.
Krugs is posing and posturing for a second Sveriges Riksbank "Nobel" Prize in Economic "Sciences".
Surprised no one mentioned the Broken Window Fallacy so far. It is after all the Keyensian Bedrock.
Destroy so you may rebuild, designed obsolosence so you must re-buy.
Broken Windows, FTW!
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/pre-cursor-2-and-currents/
Krugman, like Dubya- show how easy it is to run logical fallacies by the general public. The main one is "appeal to authority". Then of course we have the very popular "appeal to ignorance", this sounds like a possible straw man, False dichotomy and begging the question.
An Intermediate English writer can have a hayday by making their students point out ALL of the fallacies in Krugman's work. It should be required in place of a GPA score for college admissions.
Same kind of economic brilliance that trumpets construction starts in California after an earthquake or Florida after a hurricane.
By that logic, I have a guaranteed plan for economic recovery:
Step 1) Evacuate several major cities
Step 2) Bomb them to rubble
Step 3) Rebuild them
With my plan, we get a double dose of stimulus, first from the massive expenditure on munitions for the military, followed by demand on the construction trades that make the best years of the housing boom look like a Saturday afternoon spent building a tree fort.
You're welcome.
My God man! Don't give them any ideas!
so it is why cheapos from China were made NOT to last so they can sell more...implicit in buying them is acceptance. And so both/all parties are CON-spired to the design.
So it is with the broken windows...wondered if that was the reason no one mentioned it.
Thanks for sharing.
Echos the uber-leftie line apropos QE and Shovel Ready Stimulus. Had we done more, the Messiah Coulda Healed Us By Now (Heal. Heal I say, Heal!) we'd be not be in this fucking mess, all'd be well, holding hands, singing Kumbayah.
One more war, one more war, one more war.
"One more war, one more war, one more war."
Ooobahma...Ooobahma...Ooobahma!
Just one more hit and I'll feel better. Just one more hit and I know I'll feel alright. Just one more hit...
I'm the far left and these are not my friends. I asked delong once if he’s ever had a real job before.
Thanks for the video CD
Just curious Jo6pac-
Are you inclined to support Ron Paul? I've got several leftish (and one VERY left) friends, and several of them are so disappointed with Obama that they have brought RP in conversation, saying that as long as he will get us out of Iraq and quit giving money to the banksters, they will vote for him.
Though it's only top of the third inning - i'd be willing to give Paul a serious look from my leftist view. Obama was obviously not the right answer - and given the otherwise substantial lack of choice. Liberty is quite catchy.
I've gotten quite excited (and somewhat disconcerted) by the positive feedback I've gotten from my lefty friends. I was a hardcore socialist in college, and I'm still VERY liberal- hell, it's hard to be a nerdy gay Republican- but Ron Paul changed my outlook, slowly but surely. It took a while, but once I grokked the basics and simplicity (but not simplistic by any means) of the message, it really opened my POV. I have some major issues- abortion, social benefits, health care- but I'm starting to understand how all of those are tied into "the liberty thing" and am still refining my understanding.
I will say that a few years of casual study of Austrian economic theory has been far more rewarding than the years I spent toiling in college on my econ minor. I think UNlearning shit was the hardest part!
The thing that intrigued me was an argument I read about gay marriage, one of my big issues. His simple response- get government out of marriage, and make ALL marriages civil unions- hit me like a brick. How can someone be so liberal and at the same time the most conservative person in the bunch?
UNlearning the fake lib-con paradigm, eh?
Good for you, Richard. Welcome aboard.
Agreed. It's never been about left vs right, liberal vs conservative, or republican vs democrat. It's been about what's best for the country vs what's best for the Party. (Yes, there is only one Party, and it will do anything it can to convince you otherwise.)
Yeah, I'm seeing that now. BOTH parties just want their vig, screw the rest of us. Welfare, something I deeply believe in, has had a horrible effect on society, so decentralizing it seems like a good idea. 5 minutes of Maury Povich (once I started to see the idea from another POV) convinced me of that.
Rick Perry will say ANYTHING to get elected- he's hitting Ron Paul's buzzwords so he can win. Fuck that piece of shit. Google "Gardisil Perry Merck"- he's a sellout shill.
I told a friend of mine (a republican) that I wasn't sure the right side won the civil war (back to the decentralization/antiwar thing) and he nearly bit my head off. No amount of reason or facts (this went on for days via email) would persuade him.
Reps are just as ignorant and stubborn as Dems.
I think he explained his personal belief of the abortion issue very succintly the other night and you can watch for yourself. One premise is that law itself is always on the side of the unborn except when the mother wants to abort it. If he, as an obgyn, kills a baby anywhere throughout a pregnancy he's liable for murder. If the mother is in a car accident the other driver could get manslaughter if the baby is killed (and I am using the term baby but it could be embryo or what be it).
Starts 9:40
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8vc2Q0_f5M
And while it's hard to agree with someone that doesn't belive in evolution...if these are his two perceived flaws it's far lessa problem than unethical, lying kleptocrats trying to stay in power.
What I think it Ron Pauls best asset is that he's stayed on message since the last election, was consistenly right, every Tea Partier knows who he is, the same message repeated over and over and the most people that now know his stances can explain them to people that are misinformed or brainwashed.
Incidentally during the Terri Schiavo dustup his stance was to stay out of the hospital room too.
Did you know Perry is on record saying marriage, including gay marriage, is a state issue, and the Feds should get bent, as the 10th Ammendment intended?
Perry will fit in in Washington.
Dick Fitz-
This is what scares the oligarchs so much. If RP gets the nomination, the crossover vote is powerful. Ironic, claiming his inelectibilty is a fraud.
You're begging the question. A true republican will find out how to fix things in the private sector.
So, I take it that I'm considered the "riff raff" by the mainstream, eh?
Reggie, anyone outside the dialectic is RiffRaff to these people. I think you're cool!!!
Thanks for your posts- I've really learned a lot.
How can you get any new ideas when the political gang goes to the same schools and gets taught by the same professors? Then there is the merry-go-round of professors going into government and then back to school and then back to government. Recently, many have done some time over at the Soros schools of Media Matters and Center for American Progress before allowed to infect the population.
Merry-go-round? How about circle jerk?
...daisy chain??????
double dutch rudder
table topper
Paul Krugman is crazy, sick, hypocrite.
He reminds me of Thomas Friedman.
In what way?
They both long for a command & control economy.
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1
And of course, he and Krugman fancy themselves as the "enlightened group".
Freedom is designed to protect us from the enlightened elite. It is not a coincidence that the elite do not like the non-enlightened to enjoy any.
They like to smell their own farts. I saw it on South Park.
Thomas Friedman is a warmonger and sociopath. For the last ten years he's used his NY Times column to demand the U.S. invade and destroy Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think we can all agree that both Friedman and Krugman are douchebaggy twats.
Both Friedman and Krugman are twats
Two morons with strange jumbled thoughts
Too stupid for words
Two unpolished terds
Where most men have dicks they have slots.
Outstanding Limerick!
I think we can all agree that both Friedman and Krugman should butt fuck their own faces. That's right Tom, that's right Paul, in the immortal words of Sockeye (Kent, Ohio band, late 80s, early 90s), "fuck your face in the ass!"
now THAT'S rich, gonna have to remeber that one!
Did you mean baggy-twat douches?
Krugman, Friedman, Broder, neo-cons (etc) are mostly Tribals. Wars to take down Israel's enemies, wars to bring on the Constitution-destroying "National Security State". As Jews have done many times before, they are having their way with the host-nation, and getting away with it thru debt-finance. Which'll work...until it doesn't. Then, tough for them.
It’s worse than that. They’re both traitors parroting their chickenshit propaganda at the direction of the global syndicate. The insidious Rand Corporation came out two years ago and concluded that world war was the correct response to the incipient financial collapse. I’m sure that little whore Krugman is well bribed to promote fascist policy. Tom Friedman is just a jr. sociopathic, globalist bag of shit… the heir to bottom tier billionaires on the ruling oligarchy ladder. I wouldn’t waste my time with the treasonous New York Times…Operation Mockingbird!
They are both self-absorbed blowhards (douche baggy twats I guess you would say; see above)
OT: Tom Demark sees new lows before new highs (Bloomberg)
The S&P 500, which closed at 1,204.49 yesterday, will probably drop below the 11-month low of 1,119.46 set on Aug. 8 before surging above 1,363.61, its peak on April 29, DeMark said during an interview in London today.
“We’re at the point right now where the next trip down will probably generate a buy signal,” said DeMark, the founder of Market Studies LLC. “Everything we follow is indicating the Dow Jones and the S&P should make a minor new recovery high, and probably the Nasdaq, too.”
“The overall trend is down,” he said. “You might be able to squeeze out minor new highs in spite of that.”
----------------------------------
Demark indicators are still showing a couple month window for downside action at least. Given that Laksman Achuthan from ECRI hasn't seen a turn up in the long leading indicators, any sustained rally to new highs seems unlikely (barring QE3).
Let's hope this call is better than his last one from January:
Tom DeMark: A 11% Drop In The Market Is Imminent
I don't expect marginal new highs personally, but his indicators have been pretty reliable over time. QE3 could get the market to new highs, but only in nominal terms.
I think next tranche of Greece bailout money will ignite the crisis once again in September.
Anxiously awaiting Achuthan's next interview to see how things have changed in the last week or so according to their data.
As an aside, recently came across Cabot Market Letter general updates. Looks like a pretty impressive history dating back to 2002.
http://www.cxoadvisory.com/12544/individual-gurus/cabot-market-letter-ou...
their latest was...
8/15/11 “…right now, it’s time for defense — protect your capital by holding cash and, should we get a bounce of a few days, selling some shares into it.”@Erik
Wow. I never knew anyone was interested in that hack.
Not sure I would call him a hack. Have you heard him speak? I am impressed by his simple straight-forward approach. He was right in August of last year when he said no double dip. Not many people got that right. Regardless, to each his own. So far, he is right about the recent slow down in the economy.
Ouch. Ya gotz sharp elbows today Tyler.
I'm moving to the side of the basement and passing on a fight tonight if you don't mind. Take Bob instead.
I guess since this isn't your first night at fight club, you don't have to fight.
/Bob had bitch tits.
Pec shields
His name was Robert Paulson.
Back On Topic: I'm preparing for the invasion by hostile extraterrestrials that Krugman is sounding the alarm on. I've got a baby monitor on the roof of the car, I've filled all sinks and bathtubs with water, and I've placed mirrors on the roof of the house and have saran wrapped every room and molded a tin foil suit of armor for all persons and family pets here.
What does Krugman advise as a battle strategy? I've heard rumors that Cool Whip burns their skin.
New York Times Breaking News: Superhero Paul Krugman Saves World From Alien Invasion of Planet EarthThat last statement sounds like he's plagiarizing "The Watchmen."
Wow Krugman is nothing more than a mouth piece to defend the pillage done by the oligarchy...and the sky is blue. Even children know these things. The oligarchy loves war for reasons almost to numerous to mention so naturally both sides of the political spectrum must be pro war, with a spin to fit it into the mold they are selling to their share of the mindless masses.
I can't fathom why people even bother reading him, he can't have that wide a audience besides those that are fully committed to the cause and are to mindless to be saved.
he's cousins with the editors and guys like wiesenthal
That's what inbreeding leads to.
That and 4 last names in the phonebook (or I guess now whitepages.com)
Wow, I agree with KRUGMAN.
First, since it was his BRILLLIANT idea, I say we do not put him thru Boot Camp, and just outfit his sorry ass, and give him a rifle,a 30rd mag, no more.................. and drop into the VERY front line.
Sound GOOD PAUL?.
Your SORRY SON OF A BITCH.
If this attitude is what it takes to get a NOBEL PRIZE, they can leep em'.
Sure is not a NOBLE PRIZE.
Yes it is. He already has one on economics.
His latest rant will earn him a nobel peace prize.
Like the one CLETUS was awarded for....doing absolutely nothing.
prolly not related...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFOro0qOdo
Well Obama got one didn't he? Don't you know...war IS peace these days.
Krugman is not a Nobel Laureate, because the "Nobel Prize in Economics" isn't really a Nobel Prize. It is not one of the prizes established by Alfred Nobel's 1895 will, but rather is a prize in memory of Nobel's will. It was established by the Swedish central bank in 1968, the bank's 300th aniversary. It's official name is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
My opinion is that it was an attempt by the Swedish central bank to buy respectability and legitimacy for the pseudoscience of economics. The confused association with the Nobel Prize was deliberate.
Again, Krugman is a Sveriges Riksbank Laureate, not a Nobel Laureate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences
see you on the front line you bearded bitch
G.L.
I read your stuff -well thought out and grounded. However, I wouldn't worry about meeting the test of the MSM, both left and right.
Eating corndog is one thing, but unless you like the taste of shit, they won't be letting you on to our modern day Titanic.
Paul Krugman 2002:
Krugs is a nut. He advocates ecnomic genocide yet claims he stands up for the little guy.
Maybe he meant "stands on" the little guy.
People in his lofty circles don't suffer for their mistakes, so they don't give a shit.
Kind of like running over a cute little bunny in the road, and not looking in the rear view mirror means it didn't happen.
The bunny knows damn well it happened, but no one cares.
This specific quote is badly abused, and the practice should cease among people who hate Krugman for perfectly good reasons.
This was not "advocacy," it was "description." The process was already underway, and Krugman was explaining it.
He's still a horrible and misguided propagandist for the wealthiest criminals on the planet and should be tarred and feathered before his typing privileges are revoked, but pasting this specific quote as proof that he was *demanding* the continued inflation of the housing bubble is acutely dishonest.
Agreed: K. wrote that off the cuff, it wasn't a real thought-out position.
The war-mongering is different, because it's an underlying presupposition of a lot of K.'s thinking—and a lot of his advice.
GL
Agreed, and I've got a bigger issue with warwhoring than market-manipulation any day of the week.
bd
yeah, you're right... Pauly K didn't mean a word he said. Just kissing his goy boy Greenspan's butt cheeks.
In no way whatsoever did he want a consumption based, stimulative aggregate demand driven, phony economy to lift us out of the irrational exuberant created mess we found ourselves in during the early 2000s.
Krugman deserves a break...
/sarc
Work on the reading skills, toots.
You can fight propaganda by trying to "outdo" the other side, or you can try honesty. I advocate the latter.
Been away a few days, not sure if this was posted, but it looks like the heat on Bernanke is getting hot!!! It is about time Bernanke was called out on his Treason!!! Him and Geithner!
http://news.yahoo.com/rick-perry-wants-ugly-ben-bernake-053900247.html
Are you serious? Perry is a bought and paid for elitist, judas goat, snake in the grass, used car salesman. He's lobbing BS rhetoric to seem like he is a states rights conservative, only to steal the Ron Paul vote. If he does win go buy some Merck stock as he's done plenty of dirty deeds on their behalf before. I Don't believe a word that comes out of that jackwagon's mouth. Not going to run for president? Lie. Never been to the Bildeberger meetings? Lie. Never worked for Al Gore? Lie. POS was Al Gore's campaign manager in texas in 1998. Then miraculously turns republican a year later and a became a climate change skeptic. My guess is that this has always been part of the plan and he's the fast track to 1984 with Carbon Taxes and a TSA agent giving me proctology exams.
++ Bush III
It is telling that Republican Party sources indicate that when Bush and Rove were together privately, they referred to Perry as "that idiot".
I think you meant ++ Bush IV. Obama is Bush III.
I'm still looking for a photo of Rick and Al together.
I don't think Tyler Durden would ever go 'skiing in Chile' . . .
I wrote this piece, and I live in Chile—the slopes are a 45-minute drive away.
GL
We love Chile, people are great and wine is fantastic.
gwar5,or Gonzalo
What is the immigration process and citizenship requirements, etc?
I like it with lots of beans.
dude...could i stay with you? jk nice work...
gonzalo, do you know simon black? hes my hero!!!!
Yeah, I had dinner with one of his two avatars in Santiago a few months ago.
Interesting (virtual) guy . . .
GL
he loves chile. says i can buy a 12 bedroom casita in the andean paramo for 100 bucks!! and he lured me in with his chilean inflation protection bonds. he hangs with presidents and hitchhikes in guerilla country. whats the deal with the student riots?
There is an argument going on over at FOFOA in the "forum 1800" comments. Your hyperinflation article is posted there.
Just read your "why democracies fail" post and I must say---KUDOS! I'm sending it to several friends now. Wish Lew R would run it on LRC- it explains in simple terms why we are in the mess we are in.
I posted this on another thread, but it seems more appropriate here.
Krugman say s we need an alien threat to imrpove the economy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nhMAV9VLvHA
Leaving BI is the best thing that ever happened to you. That site is such a joke that it almost makes MSNBC look credible.
Agreed. That site has been shit for awhile. And Joe W is useless. Pieces with his name were always horribly written.
Best thing that could have happened for GL.
Weaselthal is Mr. Clickbait.
He's a real smug pussy, and his contempt for his audience and his clickbaiting ways have already put the voodoo on whatever career he may have aspired to in the world of real journalism.
BI is like the Daily Sun or National Enquirer of the finance world, at any rate. It's full of splashy pics and sensationalistic headlines, and offers very little substance (with a few, notable exceptions).
I have seen some stuff on there that were likely cut and pasted. That Joe w. Does nothing more than add some smart ass comments to someone else's work and calls it his.
George Washington, the "well known finance and economics blogger"(Really? Seriously?) is a stone cold kook, so busy breathlessly churning out conspiracy theories that he can't even keep track of his own conflicting posts. In his defense, though, I guess when literally EVERY SINGLE THING is a conspiracy, one can lose track. Why anyone would spend the time to reply to him (other than advising he up his meds) is beyond me. But yeah. Krugman sucks.
Funny, I had the exact same reaction when I read that...
Why are you here? The New York Times has all the news you'll ever need.
But it's got no funnies.
Read the OP/Ed page with the right mindset and you'll laugh.
LOL - stone cold kook - my sentiments as well for the most part. I'm still laughing.
George Washington, the "incessantly whining crybaby Glen Beck wanabe well known as the biggest eyesore on the finance and economics blog ZeroHedge, rapidly going insane over America's well-documented decline to oblivion which he and his right wing radical trailer-trash following can't seem to get their psueudo-religious minds around, so bereft of originality he can't even come up with a unique moniker, instead plagiarizing the name of a true patriot he bears no resemblence to but is the antithesis of ..."
Fixed it.
he and his right wing radical trailer-trash
GW right wing? My goodness, you are a truly ignorant person.
Although he's not perfect, maybe it's because he's more correct about things and more interested in truth and freedom than you and all your flying monkeys are.
Very well put ! I LIKE GW.
++
I'd fight Paul Krugman.
You go Dasa... My money's on you, big man. Krugman is a great big pussy!
Dont we have to eat the rich, first?
http://youtu.be/QOBIYAhFHMk
Careful mateys, thar be mullets ahead.
Look I LOVE GW!
but this guy could write an article for over here with us once in awhile it would not kill him to have some cross over.
JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT!
Thanks for the Post! Enjoy Your Winter!
President Hugo Chavez has celebrated that the Unified Regional Compensation System (Sucre) is being evaluated by the Union of South American Countries, Unasur. According to Chavez, the adoption of a single currency like the Sucre has the potential to become a tool to shield the region from the financial crisis caused by the global economic meltdown originated in the U.S. and Europe.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194159.html
par Eva Golinger
Washington finance l’opposition vénézuélienne “made in USA” Url de l’article original:: English http://www.chavezcode.com/2011/08/us-20-millionpar Eva Golinger Washington finance l’opposition vénézuélienne “made in USA” Url de l’article original:: English http://www.chavezcode.com/2011/08/us-20-million-for-venezuelan-opposition.html-for-venezuelan-opposition.html
Paul Krugman wasn't just pushing for spending money on war, Krugman was serioiusly pushing for us to spend lots of money preparing for a "war with aliens from outerspace" to gin up the economy.
This was on a panel discussion that included Rogoff, a Harvard Economist, who thinks exactly like Krugman does, though Rogoff managed not to stray from our own galaxy.
I saw it too.
Fareeeky Z interveiwing the Ink-a-Zoids...lol...it will soon be a cult classic in the Ivy League.
They sat there, stoned faced, stroking each others egos, confident in their smugness, that digging ditches for no reason and then refilling them was a productive activity.
Friggin Twilight Zone.
Well Said!
And they were both serious. As is S E R I O U S. Like meant with no humor, indirect references, veiled analogies, symbolism, lessons, comparisons or contrasts, just plain butt fuck downright damned dead serious.
Wow.
He's got funny eyes, too.
Reptilian looking eyes. Like David Icke warned us about. Lizard people eyes look like that. I guess. Or maybe he's got on sunglasses contacts indoors. Or something.
This is disturbing.
nmewn:
That was FDR CCC and all of the other 1933++ programz. But we're well into this situation and, well ...
- Ned
{stroking--lol}
"That was FDR CCC and all of the other 1933++ programz.:'
Yeah, that "shovel ready" ditch digging thingy never seems to go out of style with the elitist coddled class...lol.
"stroking" Heh!...life is a corndog ;-)
There's $2T of highways, bridges, power grid, water and sewage lines, transportation facilities etc which need urgent repair, maintenance, uprgrading.
That is work which could be done and should be done to generate employment and get the real economy back on its feet.
"That was FDR CCC and all of the other 1933++ programz. But we're well into this situation and, well ..."
Don't be ridiculous. Look up an actual list of the work done by programs like the WPA, including the creation of National Parks like Yellowstone. You can't be this ignorant of American history.
"That is work which could be done and should be done to generate employment and get the real economy back on its feet."
Fine.
Everyone who is a ward of the state can get right on it.
"Don't be ridiculous. Look up an actual list of the work done by programs like the WPA, including the creation of National Parks like Yellowstone."
The WPA created Yellowstone? And they rested on the seventh day...lol.
I'd rather our overlords spent £2T of our money on infrastructure than on warring with non-existent space aliens. But infrastructure isn't by definition investment unless it actually boosts productivity, and there's been plenty of money wasted by governments on infrastructure in the past. Ever heard the expression 'bridges to nowhere'? It's not a metaphor.
Must admit I no longer frequent BI primarily due to Joe Weisenthal...not sure if he writes stupid, poorly thought out things to get readers or if those are his true views...either way, too much bullshit and fluff on BI and although I know GL would prefer the cash in hand, at least you aren't writing for a shill.
I think karma is doing a fine job on Bullshit Insider. And Joe belongs right there with it.
Da Fabian chickenzzza...are a comin hooomah...to rooostah!!! ;-)
must read by michael pento on krugmans love of war and debt and printing and depressions
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpento/2011/08/16/krugmans-war-cry-wont-avert-depression/
Yeah....what a sorry son of a bitch...looks like WWII left some pretty some pretty traumatizing scars. The man needs a psychoanalysis and maybe even more.
Lira's "Why Democracies Always Go Bankrupt" is so brilliant it makes your head spin. It's absolutely right to precisely the degree that Krugman is absolutely wrong.
Thank you!
GL
Just thanked him above. Absolutely one of the most astute and insightful demolitions of "democracy" and public debt I've ever read.
I'm insufficiently brilliant to read GL; tried once, too many F-bombs. It does occur to me tho that, over the long run, the "majority" in a democracy will vote for the pols who deliver the most bennies and tax the least to pay for same. Like now. Endgame.