Posts
5094
Joined
4/1/2008
Location
Indianapolis, IN
US
Edited Date/Time
1/22/2012 6:09pm
From NYT:
All the President’s Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2009
The debate over the “public option” in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction — in Congress, if not with the broader public — simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.
Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.
Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.
Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.
First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.
To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.
Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.
And then there’s the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s.
There’s a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis — and the crisis came.
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.
Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.
The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.
But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.
So why won’t these zombie ideas die?
Part of the answer is that there’s a lot of money behind them. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, I would add, his campaign contributions — “depend upon his not understanding it.” In particular, vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like Mr. Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation.
But some of the blame also must rest with President Obama, who famously praised Reagan during the Democratic primary, and hasn’t used the bully pulpit to confront government-is-bad fundamentalism. That’s ironic, in a way, since a large part of what made Reagan so effective, for better or for worse, was the fact that he sought to change America’s thinking as well as its tax code.
How will this all work out? I don’t know. But it’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.
All the President’s Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2009
The debate over the “public option” in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction — in Congress, if not with the broader public — simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.
Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.
Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.
Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.
First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.
To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.
Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.
And then there’s the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s.
There’s a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis — and the crisis came.
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.
Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.
The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.
But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.
So why won’t these zombie ideas die?
Part of the answer is that there’s a lot of money behind them. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, I would add, his campaign contributions — “depend upon his not understanding it.” In particular, vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like Mr. Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation.
But some of the blame also must rest with President Obama, who famously praised Reagan during the Democratic primary, and hasn’t used the bully pulpit to confront government-is-bad fundamentalism. That’s ironic, in a way, since a large part of what made Reagan so effective, for better or for worse, was the fact that he sought to change America’s thinking as well as its tax code.
How will this all work out? I don’t know. But it’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.
Paul Robin Krugman (pronounced /ˈkruːɡmən/[1]) (born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, liberal columnist, and author.[2] In 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography. The Nobel Prize Committee stated that Krugman's main contribution had been to analyze the impact of economies of scale, combined with the assumption that consumers appreciate diversity, on international trade and on the location of economic activity.[3] He is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and op-ed columnist for The New York Times.[4][5]
So enlightening
Your responses to his points were well made and and direct.
GREAT JOB!
The Shop
Krugman's New York Times column last week reveals with alarming clarity that despite his pretensions of scholarship, Krugman’s economics can be reduced to Proudhon's famous socialist slogan, "Property is robbery."
The column is called “Dooh Nibor Economics.” That's "Robin Hood" spelled backwards. Not especially witty (what's next — a column in Pig Latin?), but the idea is clear enough: According to Krugman, Bush's tax cuts steal from the poor and give to the rich.
As Krugman puts it,
Bush's tax cuts will require large cuts in popular government programs. And for the vast majority of Americans, the losses from these cuts will outweigh any gains from lower taxes … The end result of current policies will be a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent.
Stop for a moment and examine the language Krugman is using here: "a large-scale transfer of income." What "income," exactly, is he talking about transferring?
It's clear enough that when you tax the incomes of people who work for a living, you can transfer it to people who don't in the form of welfare payments. More generally, when you tax the 20 percent of American households that pay 85 percent of total federal income taxes, and use that money to fund government services that benefit all Americans, you've given the other 80 percent of households "income" in the form of goods and services they didn't pay for.
In other words, in Krugman's language, when you steal from the rich and give to the poor, the poor now have an "income."
Ever hear of Medicare? Social Security?
Medicare and Social Security in deep financial trouble
I'd like to know on what we're supposed to base this trust of the government's ability. The government consistently fails at the programs it creates, and the only way it recovers is by printing money at the expense of our children to keep their failures afloat. Should we just bury our head in the sand?
Show me a fully funded plan THAT BENEFITS ALL AMERICANS EQUALLY with a contingency, and I'll consider it.
So enlightening
Your responses to his points were well made and and direct.
GREAT JOB!
But thank you for providing us some insight into your vivid imagination and how you make things up
I get sick of the right wingnuts that just throw stones because it's not their team, but the issue the left needs to come clean on is money.
As far as the right goes...give us some other alternatives? How would you propose to save money? Our system costs more and the results aren't exactly stellar. Is the right willing to go along with some real regulation and controls on insurance? What about pre-existing conditions? Is it just tough shit?
It was written by Donald Luskin, a college drop-out.
Yeah, he has the credentials to be criticizing something written by Paul Krugman!
Notice this bit:
Krugman talks about the transfer of income from the middle-class to the affluent through tax cuts for the rich, and the resulting lack of money to fund programs that benefit the middle class.
Luskin turns this around by saying that this transfer is to the 'people who don't' work in the form of welfare payments, always a touchy issue to conservatives.
Then his conclusion is that by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, that is what income Krugman is talking about.
How does that make any sense to anyone who can read?
I still wanna know how I should disregard the consistent failings of the government (such as Medicare and Social Security) in similar federally managed social programs?
Answer it.
Can anyone provide a link to a Republican healthcare bill that's been introduced in the House?
I'd really love to see the alternative plan in detail
Thank you in advance for your help on this
Pit Row
Where would we, as a country, be now without them?
Answer it.
The whole argument (or bitchfest as it were) is growing tiresome, I agree, and why the Rebubs aren't out there shouting from the roof tops is beyond me.
I realize MSNBC wouldn't air such things, but there are outlets out there who will.
Interesting bit on wicki about Luskin:
Conflicts with Paul Krugman
As a public intellectual, Luskin has been controversial. Much of his blog and many of his NRO columns are devoted to arguments that economic facts, figures, and trends are distorted by politicians, pundits and the media. He has a particular animosity towards the New York Times, especially columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, whose economic pronouncements he has endeavored to debunk. Luskin is de facto leader of what he calls the "Krugman Truth Squad," an ad hoc group of bloggers who are dedicated to detailing and rebutting what they consider Krugman's lies and distortions.
According to Daniel Okrent, former Public Editor of the Times, "Luskin serves as Javert to Krugman's Jean Valjean. From a perch on National Review Online, he regularly assaults Krugman's logic, his politics, his economic theories, his character and his accuracy."[9] Luskin claims that his work has resulted in corrections from Krugman and "the imposition of a new and more rigorous corrections policy for the entire Times editorial page."[10]
Krugman has occasionally responded directly to Luskin's criticisms. In one instance Luskin accused Krugman of making an arithmetical error in his appraisal of the costs and effects of the 2003 tax cuts.[11] Krugman responded with a series of postings on his website.[12] In one such posting, apparently referring to the persistence of Luskin's criticisms, Krugman humorously referred to Luskin as his "stalker-in-chief".[13] Later, after Luskin appeared at a Krugman book signing, Krugman said of Luskin on the FOX News television program Hannity and Colmes, "That's a guy, that's a guy who actually stalks me on the web, and once stalked me personally".[14] The animosity between Luskin and Krugman became so intense it became the subject of a story in The New Yorker with extensive remarks from both men.[15] Krugman's characterization of Luskin as a stalker was repeated by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) prompting a threat of legal action from lawyers representing Luskin.[15][16]
I'd like the left to define, exactly, which costs they are looking to bring down with a "public option"...insurance costs, or the true costs charged by doctors hospitals pharmacutials (sp?) etc....
It seems that by addressing ONLY the insurance costs (by becoming competition they are going to give Americans a cheaper option for health insurance), it isn't going to have much impact on the actual costs (or costs of care and services). Yes, it might have an indirect effect.
And if someone could point out a government ran program that doesn't lose money and can support itself financially (like obama said healthcare would do), I wouldn't be soooo against the government stuff. But as history dictates (and history does tend to repeat itself), if the government is running it, it's going to be a money pit....cost way more than expected, and lose billion of dollars every year. Not to mention be a model of inefficiency.
I think the government needs to let the prices run their course...eventually they'll come down...when the majority of people/companies can no longer afford them and stop paying for it. There are worse things in this life than death (which would happen more often if you couldn't afford healthcare), and one of the things at the top of that list, is living in a country that the liberals are turning this country into.
Medicare & Social Security in deep financial trouble
Anyone can cite a myopic view and claim success. However, on a system level, these programs have some serious problems.
Answered.
Again, answer mine.
Hey, I'm anybody too. I want my Nobel prize!
Underfunded is failure. Having to run in the red isn't success. The point is why I can't trust the government. I've answered it. I can't trust them.
Ebay, of course:
Buy It Now!
You gotta beleive me Your Honor, Im not a failure, my bank account is only underfunded.
Post a reply to: Best op-ed I've read in awhile