We're baaaaacccckkkk...and Krugman nailed it!

It's always struck me as silly to apologize for someone else's screwup. However, we've been down for a few days because the hobbits at Typepad decided that we probably were a blog consisting of spam. Seriously...we might be full of shit, but except for Captain Capitulation who has been known to fry spam and feed it under the guise of political philosophy, no spam is consumed in the making of this blog. Some of the comments are probably spam because robot maketing seems to rule the world. Sorry 'bout that...anyway, this has previously been up over at Veterans Today, but for those of you of find some of my compatriots obsessions over there scarier than my musings about hobbits or Mr Fun's thoughts on evolution, here we are...

In addition to columns, books, text books and lecture notes, Paul Krugman has a blog through the Times. He uses it to try out themes and ideas, and in a more informal way than the columns. However, I don't think this needs any great editing, just more elaboration.

I’ll need to write up my thoughts here at greater length, but let’s just say for now that what we’ve witnessed pretty much throughout the western world is a kind of inverse miracle of intellectual failure. Given a crisis that should have been relatively easy to solve — and, more than that, a crisis that anyone who knew macroeconomics 101 should have been well-prepared to deal with — what we actually got was an obsession with problems we didn’t have. We’ve obsessed over the deficit in the face of near-record low interest rates, obsessed over inflation in the face of stagnant wages, and counted on the confidence fairy to make job-destroying policies somehow job-creating.

The editor at Veterans Today sent out a note asking that the various staff writers think about what the debt deal will do to veterans. Well, since Vets as a group fall into an interesting conundrum -- joblessness and homelessness and lack of medical insurance and suicice rates higher to minorities who've been slammed despite being just "loved" by the country, I suspect that we can use them as a microscope as to what this deal is going to do. 

If you are a homeowner, you're not going to see any assistance. I was talking to an attorney yesterday who used to represent mortgage companies and banks, and is now on the other side after a bit of a crisis of conscience. "The banks got tons of money, and they were allowed to re-write the rules to make it easier on them to screw the consumer..." So, don't expect new programs, don't expect actual results from the current programs. Since Fannie, Freddie,and the FHA are under attack, expect VA loans to be undermined as well. This was tried during Bush II, part II, when some congressional Republicans were advocating that vets only be allowed to use VA loans twice, because letting them use it more than that was letting them be greedy...yeah. I've bought three homes using my GI Bill, all after moving because the Army moved me...

If you're unemployed, expect to stay that way. The idea that the rich are job creators is absurd, of course. The rich are powerful, and they want to get rich. If they can make money by expanding their businesses, they will. If they can make money by off-shoring jobs, replacing workers, busting unions and on and on and on, they will. In a situation of limited demand, large inventories and excess capacity, they're going to stand pat, or even downsize. That's the way business and capitalism works. Lawrence O'Donnell said last night that there's good capitalism and there's bad capitalism; there's good socialism and there's bad socialism. When they work together in a mixed economy -- which like it or not, any modern economy is going to be mixed between state and private interests -- they can produce marvelous results. Good or bad. But expecting capitalism to do things that have nothing to do with the growth of capital is stupid. It's like expecting to get milk from a snake. You can get something, it will just not be milk. 

If you're trying to go to school, and need loans, well, you're screwed. The newest GI Bill is great of course -- I am envious although grateful for my Vietnam era GI Bill -- but it's in danger of not being fully funded. The VA is making strides, but those strides require spending. Spending requires money. Money is something that the idiots in control of the House and the Senate -- King Turtle Rules! If you can say no, you can accomplish a lot of things, largely obstructionist and evil in this case. Mitch McConnell is a fair smarter version of the leader of the Knights Who Say Ni! only he can't be placated with a shrubbery.

Want to retire? Probably going to not be a dream retirement. Granted, a lot of us are taking unplanned, unwanted early retirement because of unemployment, but folks with jobs who are getting close are often either afraid to retire thanks to all the fear mongering about things that aren't real, and with Social Security and Medicare under constant attack as entitlements, we're probably going to see even more issues that make people hesitate. You probably can't sell your home for enough to do anything else with like buy another home in Boca Raton. Or Catfish Guts Mississippi, for that matter. 

Vets represent the cutting edge of traditional American values -- and, they will be screwed by the inevitabilities of the debt deal. Hopefully, the Progressive Dems will find a theme  that can resonate on the bumper sticker and the talking points and the cable news shows and the internet. "Bohener is a boner!" is probably not going to do it, I guess. How about "Say no to economic terrorism!"

There was another interesting piece in the Times today. It isn't all that terribly surprising to me, but it is something that we ought to consider. We forget it in the face of the whole "best and brightest" thing. Obama just isn't crazy enough for these guys. Bill Clinton had a lot of issues, and he was fairly effective. GW had issues and he was effective. Ronald Reagan had lots of issues and he was effective. Carter and Ford didn't have a lot of emotional or psychological issues and they were effective. On and on and on and on...Socrates still rules philosophy, and he was a crazy old coot a good deal of the time. Bill Gates is a high functioning autistic and look at what he's done. 

The author, Nassir Gamehi, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts Medical School, hypothesizes this, comparing and contrasting the success of Roosevelt in his administration in doing great things, and Obama's inability to get beyond the nonsense thrown up in his path. 

The difference between the two leaders may exemplify a general rule, the inverse law of sanity: mentally healthy leaders, successful in quiet and prosperous times, often fail in times of crisis; in contrast, our greatest crisis leaders frequently are mentally abnormal, even mentally ill.

Or, as Alice Roosevelt Longford wrote about her cousin, "A third rate mind with a first rate temperament." Anyway, being brilliant and having a sense of proportion and irony is not a bad thing in a leader. But, you need to have a spark of madness to act in a way that confounds the opposition and inspires the base. That's why people listen to Bachmann and Palin and McCain but aren't able to deal with Romney. 

Worth considering. 

 

Comments

[the serrach]

we're back!!

[zencomix]

Welcome back!