Krugman of the NYT Complains about the Low Level of Spending.  Spend More and More and More!

The New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers [1] has an all-encompassing and circuitous track record of apologizing for any form of big government as long as it involves huge spending and high taxes. Today, the Times’ famous noneconomics economist Paul Krugman [2]grinds on with his tautological offal-spreading awful rhetoric and moans that the President has not asked for enough money.

I[3] have included an executive abstract of this blog that condenses the facts and themes.

Abstract of this blog: Paul Krugman continues to honor and sustain his monotonous and tautological socialist puppet image as he complains about the low level of spending on the stimulus.  His only solution to any government ‘problem’ is always higher taxes, more spending and bigger and bigger government programs. He seems to claw spending numbers from the CBO and other sources out of the air like a starving buzzard frantically ripping out the entrails of some fallen creature.  He purports to have a ‘solution’ to a world-wide depression caused in the US, for the most part by psychotic spending on ‘affordable housing.’  Given the obvious onset of a depression, the only consolation for Krugman and his lackeys is to expand government and take advantage of the financial chaos that is just ahead. This essay asks the question about Europe: if socialism is so great then why are the Europeans in worse shape than we are? If Krugman was correct, their socialism would have saved them from the looming depression and they would have educated us on economics.  We are the ones with the lower taxes. High taxes should have saved them. The reverse is true. We can probably minimize this economic mess, but Europe is finished.

In its twice-weekly noisy spin of the leftist loaded dice, the Times’  igNoble Leechette[4][5][6][7], blessed with insights and the esoteric ability to divine the  essential specifics of Depression government policies, will now mechanically grind out  a newly written chorus song featuring the only words that matter to a leftist politician: Tax and Spend.

Krugman begins with:

“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.”

“Even if the original Obama plan — around $800 billion in stimulus, with a substantial fraction of that total given over to ineffective tax cuts — had been enacted, it wouldn’t have been enough to fill the looming hole in the U.S. economy, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will amount to $2.9 trillion over the next three years”[8]--The Destructive Center by Paul Krugman Op-Ed Columnist Published: February 8, 2009 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.][All quotes are from this link in this essay today unless otherwise indicated.]

The Times[9] is a slick propaganda machine[10] that over-estimates the spending and solutions to just about every social problem, real or imaginary.  Using the crude mechanisms of misinformation, the propagandist frequently telegraphs his conclusion by putting the conclusion or part of that conclusion in the title or the first sentence. The body of the tome is then usually devoted to cherry-picked examples that amplify his views and sophomoric gripes usually polluted with anecdotes and other fluff. Contraindicating facts are omitted. Today, Krugman defines those moderates who populate the political center as ‘destructive’ thus condemning them and, without comment, also the right. That leaves not only the left, but he  limits his wrath only to omit only the far left who remain human in his warped view of the world. He is truly and extremist.

The CBO just tells us that the bill will cost us 9.7 trillion dollars.[11]

“The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.”[12]-- U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs (Update1) by Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry

Krugman mumbles with this after condemning the centrists:

“But how did this happen? I blame President Obama’s belief that he can transcend the partisan divide — a belief that warped his economic strategy.”

You provided much of this economic ‘strategy.’ His idea was to ‘earn the respect and support of all Americans.’ He cannot control Congress.

Krugman waxes psychotic when the words tax and cut occupy  adjacent positions in any sentence:

“In the Senate, Republicans inveighed against “pork” — although the wasteful spending they claimed to have identified (much of it was fully justified) was a trivial share of the bill’s total. And they decried the bill’s cost — even as 36 out of 41 Republican senators voted to replace the Obama plan with $3 trillion, that’s right, $3 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years.”

“For rather than acknowledge the failure of his political strategy and the damage to his economic strategy, the president tried to put a postpartisan happy face on the whole thing. “Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands,” he declared on Saturday, and “the scale and scope of this plan is right.”

No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t.”--Krugman

We do need a stimulus so I recommend [1] we cut FICA and FICM payroll withholding to zero for two years and transfer the funds from the Fed Balance sheet, [2] cut corporate taxes to zero for two years and [3] eliminate the taxes on capital gains for 5 years. Those measures do not increase government but would certainly give instant and massive relief to ALL workers and ALL corporations that generate the new jobs.  I might also send $300 per month to all persons on unemployment.

All this krugmaniacal fluff flies in the face of the following observation: The idiotic European Common Market[13], now morphed into the EU with their pretty currency, and also polluted with Islamo-Fascism, [14]is in worse shape, by far, than the US. If socialism was worth a pinch of sour owl crap then why didn’t they keep on their economic course with their wonderfully high taxes and laugh and jeer at our capitalism as we go down? No, neither socialism nor a blend of capitalism and socialism has prevented the onset of this disaster. Their status is grim and I think the EU will collapse in chaos and war and race riots. Massive debt did this.  The world-wide problem is too much debt. Japan and the PRC may follow. Japan is collapsing, again,  an ongoing economic wreckage that started in 1990.

For a survey of  the European Scene, we rely on Ambrose Evans-Prichard:

“As they [the US Congress e.d.]  dither, the world is falling apart. Events in Japan have turned deeply alarming. Exports fell 35p pc [Note: pc is ‘%’ in the obtuse syntax of he Brits ed.]   in December. Industrial output fell 9.6pc. The economy is contracting at an annual rate of 12pc….

This has echoes of 1932, when the US Congress took charge of monetary policy. We are moving to a stage of this crisis where democracies start to speak – especially in Europe.

The European Central Bank's refusal to follow the lead of the US, Japan, Britain, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden in slashing rates shows how destructive Europe's monetary union has become.

[Note: they are greedy and want to keep their currency value high at the expense of the rest of the world.]

German orders fells 25pc year-on-year in December. French house prices collapsed 9.9pc in the fourth quarter, the steepest since data began in 1936. …

Spain's unemployment has jumped to 3.3m – or 14.4pc – and will hit 19pc next year, on Brussels data. …

Ireland lost 36,500 jobs in January – equal to a monthly loss of 2.3m in the US. As the budget deficit surges to 12pc of GDP, Dublin is cutting wages, disguised as a pension levy. It has announced "Rooseveltian measures" to rescue the foundering companies.

Readers have berated me for a piece last week – "Glimmers of Hope" – that hinted at recovery. Let me stress, I was wearing my reporter's hat, not expressing an opinion. My own view, sadly, is that there is no hope at all of stabilizing the world economy on current policies.”[15]-- Bond market calls Fed's bluff as global economy falls apart By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 7:22PM GMT 08 Feb 2009

Thus, Europe and Japan are going down. Massive printing of money will take us down too.

Our 10 year bond interest rate is rising.  This indicates that the cost of real capital is rising according to Evans-Prichard. Somebody found out we are printing money! This is the result of deflation.  Massive debt is responsible for this debt-driven deflationary spiral. Your worthless government in Washington is groping and frantic for money as they seem to know that this ‘spending’ is phony and is a last bleached bone thrown to a starving dog.  Their solution to massive debt is to print money and increase the debt. They will crawl back to the middle class for more loot very soon:

All they have left now is your assets, bank accounts and 401(k) s. Soon might a frantic and patriotic call for ‘wealth tax’ where they tax you according to your net worth [in addition to your income] that includes property. This favors the government also if they put in a confiscatory inheritance tax as the Communist Manifesto[16] recommends.

Are we really going to let this happen? Wake up people. We need to stimulate business—not our worthless government.

rycK

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com