Magox

At this stage of the game, deficit spending will happen no matter what, and if didn't then we'd certainly fall into not just a recession but probably a depression. The problem with the president's "stimulus" bill was that it didn't address our structural labor market woes. Everything for the most part were short-term measures, that added temporary stimulus with the idea that somehow the spending was going to be enough of a boost so that the economy could reach escape velocity. Well, their calculations were wrong, it did give us a temporary boost, but once the funds exhausted, the economy came back down to earth, sorta like gravity. Krugman said we should of done a stimulus of 2 Trillion rather than the original 800B that Obama passed. Well, the problem is that we've had more "stimulus" measures that have passed, not to mention all the extraordinary measures the Fed has engaged in over the past few years. Federal Government administered stimulus has come close to that 2 Trillion dollars and 4 years later, here we are with subpar growth. Why? Again, very little has been done to structurally and sustainably improve the labor market or for that matter the economy. Many years from now, this will be a perfect case study that keynesian economics for these sort of systemic economic break downs don't work... Not to say that keynesian economics can't work, but for these sort of downturns, they aren't the answer. Krugman was wrong.

He's not trolling, he just doesn't understand.

Let's make sure we all understand this, deficit spending is stimulus. So we've have had four straight Trillion dollar years of Deficit spending. Which means four of the highest years on record of stimulus spending, and they call that austerity? Only in looney left wing circles would anyone call a year of trillion dollar deficit spending as austerity.

I would say let's just leave the gay marriage fight between the churches and the government. It's a losing argument and a reason why R's aren't able to attract young voters.

What was the original projected cost of this project when the bill that was introduced passed? And what are the projected costs As of Today?

You can try to interpret it any way you like, the fact is that no one on that panel agreed with him, Ed Rendel, super lefty Mica B, Joe S, Haas and Steve Rattner, none of them, (all of them liberals except Joe S.) It was quite clear that he not only believes that it doesn't need to be addressed within the next 10 years, but that he even doubts that there is a risk within the system. He literally scoffed at the suggestion of addressing the issue now. No one is proposing to cutting Medicare within the next few years, the arguments being made is that we will address it now and make cuts later. Why are you so adamantly opposed to that? The fact is that Krugman has now become more of a liberal hyper partisan activist than he is economist. The only people who agree with Krugman are his looney lefty zombie disciples.

Why do you even try to rationalize with EII?

Four years later, and what do we have to show for it? Over 5 Trillion dollars worth of new debt, near record low labor participation rate and a stagnant economy that is virtually flat lining.

To expand on this point and what B man was just talking about, I was reading an article in Politico today Read more: http://www.politico....l#ixzz2JU4AAmQS

On a sidenote, those tax increases are just what the economy needs, specially with the latest GDP report showing a Robust -.1% contraction in the economy. Yes We Can!

Wow! For being a professor you're inability to comprehend the English language is pretty astounding. Here's what you said : Few means a small number generally less than 5. Krugman says we shouldn't address it within the next 10 years. So which is it? Within the next few years or further out than a decade? No one is saying that we shouldn't enact pro growth policies, the argument being made is that we can do both. Reasonable people can argue in what those pro growth measures should entail, but just because you're one of the looney lefty zombie disciples of the school of Krugman shouldn't nullify your ability to reason and reject his opinion regarding that matter. You can do it TPS... I know you can, just say it, he's wrong about that.

Obama, a leader?

So that's what you got out of it? That he's trying to upstage his team? sheesh

I wasn't referring to that, but I agree with what she said there for the most part.

She's a Diva that has perfected the art of repeating folksy sounding talking points. She didn't like the way she was being treated at FOX, which led to many disagreements with the producers and upper ups at FOX, they low balled a contract offer just so that they wouldn't alienate the Sarah fans knowing full well that she wouldn't accept the honor, essentially getting rid of the Diva.

I don't even think Dion Jordan is in the top 5 this year out of all the pass rushers. That's how deep of a draft it is for pass rushers

Obama wants to do what Reagan did to the Democrats, which was destroy them both on policy and in rhetoric. Of course there is one little difference between the two, Reagan had effective policy accomplishments that produced tangible results, Obama on the other hand doesn't really have much to show for other than winning a couple of elections. So I wouldn't be surprised that Obama tries to demagogue part of the Bipartisan agreement by doing what he does best which is to create these strawmen's and vilify them by playing on the emotions of his constituents. Hopefully I'm wrong, we'll see.

Let me address a few points: To your statement Not necessarily, remember after the Lehman collapse? Was credit and capital flowing? Of course that was more of a systemic banking failure, but all one has to do is see that systemic sovereign debt failures are just if not more damaging (see Europe). So Capital doesn't have to flow somewhere. Now of course, the "cleanist dirty shirt" is the phrase coined by one of my favorite financial dudes, Bill Gross and he has a point. Of course we have an inherent advantage over the rest of the world and that of course is our mantle of having the world's reserve currency. However each and every passing day, that status is eroding due to a bevy of reasons, whether it be from the rise of the east relative to the U.S, the diversification of their assets into other areas, arranging currency swaps with other trading partners at a much faster clip than we have seen in the past, and last but not least, our unsustainable long-term debt outlook, mainly due to our overburdened health care systems through underfunded liabilities such as Medicare and S.S that continue to look worse by the day. Another point, something that is lost on SOB is that my original post was regarding Krugman's denial that the U.S doesn't have problems with our entitlements that from his perspective don't need to be addressed within the next decade. Of course any rational thinking person who understands the English language realizes that he was conflating two different topics. He was talking about Krugman's broader point of advocating for stimulus now until we have full employment and then worry about Growth later. That is another subject entirely, my post was about what Krugman said about the entitlements, and of course what I posted right below this proves that. Scarborough made a point about how we need to address our entitlements, Krugman literally scoffed at that suggestion and even implied that what Scarborough stated wasn't even true. Haas said that we needed to address it over the next decade and Krugman said that we didn't. It's pretty clear http://www.ssa.gov/o...rsum/index.html So according to the Medicare Actuaries, we are expected to exahaust our funds by 2024. So who's right? Krugman or the Medicare actuaries? That's why when I said: and you replied with "Since when does consensus actually mean anything?" Well, if it were just consensus then maybe it wouldn't have quite as much weight,but I did say "BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, math doesn't agree with you" What do I mean by math? Well, I just showed you, we know that the funds will be exhausted by 2024, and Krugman said that we didn't have to address it by that time period. How do you believe the bond markets will react if we do what Krugman suggests, which is not address Medicare before it's expected time table before it exhausts? Do you think there is a chance we could see rates go higher? The argument that was being made on the Morning Joe Panel wasn't to enact draconian cutting measures that would slow down the economy, the argument being made was we should have pro growth policies AND address our long-term debt solution, primarily they were talking about reforming the entitlements. Krugman and his zombie followers don't believe we can do both. Well, I disagree.

No one agrees with you, not the credit rating agencies, Bowles simpson, Conservative think tanks, mainstream economists, most liberal think tanks, but more importantly, math doesn't agree with you. The problem is that you have a hard time comprehending what is being said. I provided the quotes up above, it's clear to everyone that he doesn't believe that the entitlement programs need to be reformed in the next decade and in his words doesn't even believe there is a problem with our future unfunded liabilities.

Here it is for everyone to read. krugman doesn't believe we need to make any changes in our entitlements over the next decade. He doesn't even believe there is any danger and that the status quo can continue. Nevermind what the credit rating agencies or Medicare actuaries are saying, Krugman knows best and his dim witted followers will believe him no matter what the math says.

The only one fixating on anything here is you. Just because you're too much of a hard head to recognize that his insistence of not addressing the entitlement programs at this point is a reflection of your partisan views. He doesn't believe that we need to address our unfunded future liabilities, and that it's not necessary to deal with them, because from his perspective, there is no danger. That's his views, and just about every single sane non ideological person that has an inkling of knowledge regarding the economy understands that you can't just wait till later to address these issues, because the longer you wait, the more difficult it will become to reform them, and the later you reform these program, the more draconian the cuts will have to be.

Yes he did imply it. How did you not get that?

Except that's not what he said, what he said was that since we can't predict the future that we shouldn't address the entitlements until they become insolvent. The issue at hand is not about cuts in discretionary spending, or added stimulus, but what should we do about our unfunded liabilities? What can we do to curb the overall trajectory? Here is Steve Rattner's take on Krugman's nonsense:

I was watching Morning Joe and Paul krugman was being interviewed. Krugman suggested Medicare and Medicaid shortfalls should be ignored. Krugman also stated that since we couldn't predict the future, that there was no need to worry until the programs became insolvent.. Yep, until they become insolvent. You have to be a real nincompoop to subscribe to Krugman's theories.

Maybe if we don't just drop it, there is a chance they will reform PPP by instituting a blanket "ethics" code across all the forums. My guess is if there is enough bitching they will do just that.