Paul Krugman should probably be Secretary of the Treasury. I don't think he'd accept it, or Commerce, or the FED, but he's probably the best example of a Conscious Economist with a Conscience operating in the public view these days. He's not a "maverick," whatever the fuck that is that's worth having. In the west, a Marverick was a steer without a brand. Steers are castrated bulls. Get my point?
Anyway, Krugman is a mainstream economist, in the tradition of Heller, Samuelson and JK Galbraith. He writes well, which is rare for an economist and guy who first got wealthy in the textbook writing scam. However, he has a rare gift for a Nobel Laureate in the dismal psuedo-science of economics. (All Social Science is Psuedo-science, in that the conditions can never be totally replicated and the results always have more than random variation, or else the experiment is probably rigged. However, that's a rant for another place.) He has some humility. Today's column is an exemplar, sort of...It's also an evisceration and a call to arms. He begins with humility...
He begins with a confession, and although he gives some credit, before damning the bastards for being corrupt, stupid, stupidly corrupt or corruptly stupid. I think those are the only available choices. Of course, delusional is another option...he skips that one. Blind and ignorant are also skipped. They are distinct possibilities...
When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.
And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.
But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.
He then does a marvelous job summarizing how we got where we are, and belling various cats. He remains somewhat hopeful, although guardedly. The welfare of the Republic and its future now rests on the ConservaDEMS who are perfectly capable of going DIXIECRAT on the mess and refusing to play. Do a Liver-man on the whole deal. (Does Joe Lieberman have a place to sit in the caucus after that display this weekend? Do Connecticut voters have access to the recall? Why is Ben Nelson still a Democrat? Seriously, there could easily be a third party in the Senate. The far right nutcases, the hypocrites, and the Democrats. Lieberman and Nelson and a few other sellout to insurance and banking and financial fat cats would be a great starting place to sell out on the road to a new economic serfdom...if we were to dig up JP Morgan and Jay Gould, we'd be better off than today.) However, Krugman takes off the gloves and lays into the conservatives in their bizzaro world and that alone is worth the price of admission. Which, since it's on the webs, is really just time. A shame, I guess but still...
Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.
Frankly, as a guy who prides himself on having that understanding, it can be damn near fatal. None the less, Krugman nails it, them and us -- we the people elected those idiots -- and leaves the denouement to the imagination. Back to the future...barter.
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