How About Krugman's Words for 9/11/11?

#76
#76
nbakerld said:
Yeah I can. IMO, we didn't get our money's worth. What is it? $0.5 trillion and counting? How many lives? What do we have to show for it?
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We have a strategic foothold in the ME, which China needs badly, but likely can't get because we sit there.
 
#78
#78
nbakerld said:
All this means to me is that we are more likely to have more armed conflict.
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Well, we could live under the assumption that everybody else happens to have our best interests at heart and pretend that greed has faded away in those who rise to power. That's an interesting approach to international relations.
 
#79
#79
BigPapaVol said:
Well, we could live under the assumption that everybody else happens to have our best interests at heart and pretend that greed has faded away in those who rise to power. That's an interesting approach to international relations.
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It has worked so well in the past.....
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#80
#80
BigPapaVol said:
Well, we could live under the assumption that everybody else happens to have our best interests at heart and pretend that greed has faded away in those who rise to power. That's an interesting approach to international relations.
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No nation has ever invaded a country with a nuke. The likelihood that a nation as powerful as the US gets invaded is not high. I'm not worried about China unless we bring the fight to them.

The best foreign policy is free trade. I recognize that war is a minute possibility, even with our geographic, financial, and organizational advantages...as long as we aren't practicing free trade.
 
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#81
#81
rjd970 said:
When one is the president, it takes on a new meaning.

Do you think it is unfair for Obama to be pointed out for using the economic crisis to pass a garbage stimulus bill? Afterall, there is a list a mile long of people who benefited, right?
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Not my point - my point is that Krugman isn't exposing some underlying fundamental unique truth. I see you and others saying "why is it a rant if it's true"? It's a rant because Krugman's motivation is not exposing some unknown truth - it is to trash people he disagrees with ideologically. That in an of itself isn't a huge deal. But to wrap that "truth" in the 10th anniversay of 9/11 simply dissolves any "truth" in his observation.

BPV had the word right - hack. It was a hack move.

It's compounded by the screaming irony that he is doing the very thing he accuses them of doing - being divisive while using a unity event.
 
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#82
#82
nbakerld said:
No nation has ever invaded a country with a nuke. Especially, a nation as powerful as the US. I'm not worried about China unless we bring the fight to them.
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So our interests end at the borders? Take that approach for long and a nation with Nukes will be invaded.

I assume you think that being invaded is the lone route to second tier status? Makes no sense.
 
#84
#84
BigPapaVol said:
So our interests end at the borders? Take that approach for long and a nation with Nukes will be invaded.

I assume you think that being invaded is the lone route to second tier status? Makes no sense.
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Where do you find support for this?
 
#85
#85
nbakerld said:
No nation has ever invaded a country with a nuke. The likelihood that a nation as powerful as the US gets invaded is not high. I'm not worried about China unless we bring the fight to them.

The best foreign policy is free trade. I recognize that war is a minute possibility, even with our geographic, financial, and organizational advantages...as long as we aren't practicing free trade.
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Free trade was an add on apparently and I'm generally a proponent, as it's theoretically the approach to take. However, when you are the US and your labor pool is the most overpriced, relative to the rest of the world, in history, seems to me that there is a limit to the idea of unilateral free trade. We benefit from the cheap labor in the near term, as we have for the past couple decades, but we have decimated our manufacturing sector. In our position, there is some level of protectionism that is merited, especially when China manipulates its currency to the extent that they do.
 
#86
#86
nbakerld said:
Where do you find support for this?
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Seriously? You just said it hasn't happened. It is going to happen at some point. The best way to make absolutely sure it happens is to cram your head in the dirt and pretend that nukes preclude it.
 
#87
#87
BigPapaVol said:
Free trade was an add on apparently and I'm generally a proponent, as it's theoretically the approach to take. However, when you are the US and your labor pool is the most overpriced, relative to the rest of the world, in history, seems to me that there is a limit to the idea of unilateral free trade. We benefit from the cheap labor in the near term, as we have for the past couple decades, but we have decimated our manufacturing sector. In our position, there is some level of protectionism that is merited, especially when China manipulates its currency to the extent that they do.
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I'm about to get way off topic, but I disagree that we need a certain number of manufacturing jobs. Americans might end up making a lower average wage, but their purchasing power increases as they have access to cheaper goods. We get wealthier with less income.
 
#88
#88
BigPapaVol said:
Seriously? You just said it hasn't happened. It is going to happen at some point. The best way to make absolutely sure it happens is to cram your head in the dirt and pretend that nukes preclude it.
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I'm asking for a historical precedent. We are:

Wealthy
Powerful
Own superior weaponry
Geographically isolated
Organized
Well-allied
And in this hypothetical, we keep to ourselves on the world stage

When has a nation like this ever been invaded in world history? I don't think that it's happened. I don't think it will ever happen. Throwing trillions around to ensure that an unlikelihood doesn't happen seems like a collossal waste. I highly doubt that this would pass an omniscient cost/benefit analysis.
 
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#90
#90
OrangeEmpire said:
Greece, byzantines, china, russia
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Maybe you could be more specific about the latter 2. Who invaded them, unprovoked? I know little to nothing about the Byzantine empire, so maybe you could elaborate on that as well.

Greece? You mean the empire that conquered the world? Yeah they don't qualify because they didn't "keep to themselves".
 
#91
#91
nbakerld said:
I'm about to get way off topic, but I disagree that we need a certain number of manufacturing jobs. Americans might end up making a lower average wage, but their purchasing power increases as they have access to cheaper goods. We get wealthier with less income.
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how, pray tell, do we go to a lower average wage? Second, what makes you think the tradeoff between lower wage and increased purchasing power works in our favor?

I don't buy that we get wealthier with less income, in the least.
 
#92
#92
BigPapaVol said:
how, pray tell, do we go to a lower average wage? Second, what makes you think the tradeoff between lower wage and increased purchasing power works in our favor?

I don't buy that we get wealthier with less income, in the least.
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What about your happiness? Walking communities? free range chickens?
 
#94
#94
BigPapaVol said:
how, pray tell, do we go to a lower average wage? Second, what makes you think the tradeoff between lower wage and increased purchasing power works in our favor?

I don't buy that we get wealthier with less income, in the least.
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Well, the concern with losing manufacturing jobs is that American wages go down, right?

As for the last statement, you think that it's an impossibility, or you don't think it's likely?
 
#95
#95
nbakerld said:
Well, the concern with losing manufacturing jobs is that American wages go down, right?

As for the last statement, you think that it's an impossibility, or you don't think it's likely?
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I don't think it's likely. What I know for sure is that it's anything but a foregone conclusion.
 
#96
#96
We can all agree Krugman is a hack, and the article is tasteless.

But all this business about Bush, Giuliani, etc, not using 9/11 as a political tool is hogwash. In the immediate aftermath, they were spectacular, but they overplayed that card to further political agendas. Iraq included. It's as simple as that.

We'll agree to disagree.
 
#97
#97
rjd970 said:
We can all agree Krugman is a hack, and the article is tasteless.

But all this business about Bush, Giuliani, etc, not using 9/11 as a political tool is hogwash. In the immediate aftermath, they were spectacular, but they overplayed that card to further political agendas. Iraq included. It's as simple as that.

We'll agree to disagree.
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I'm not saying they didn't use it as a political tool. I am saying that is not news or a revelation of import anywhere near significant enough to justify the column. The point is made irrelevant by the context and the arguments he used.
 
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#98
#98
Found this little tidbit in an editorial over at the WSJ. Looks as if even Mr. Krugman decided to go for opportunism over unity in the days following 9/11...

He has half a point here. We remember one professional pundit who behaved quite badly, writing on Sept. 14, 2001: "It seems almost in bad taste to talk about dollars and cents after an act of mass murder," he observed, then went ahead and did so: "If people rush out to buy bottled water and canned goods, that will actually boost the economy. . . . The driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings."
That was former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, who added that "the attack opens the door to some sensible recession-fighting measures," by which he meant "the classic Keynesian response to economic slowdown, a temporary burst of public spending. . . . Now it seems that we will indeed get a quick burst of public spending, however tragic the reasons." He went on to denounce the "disgraceful opportunism" of those who "would try to exploit the horror to push their usual partisan agendas"--i.e., conservatives who he said were doing exactly what he was doing.
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Seems if he uses it to push his agenda it is thoughtful analysis. If his political enemies do it is exploitation and results in national shame.

History's Smallest Monster - WSJ.com

Again to BPV's point, this line from the column is particularly telling:

Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror.
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I see no fundamental underlying truth in this statement. Did Krugman race to cash in on the horror when 3 days later he used it to argue for some Keynesian stimulus?
 
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#99
#99
So are you saying Krugman = POTUS in terms of actually cashing in on disaster opportunism by driving political agendas?
 
#100
#100
rjd970 said:
So are you saying Krugman = POTUS in terms of actually cashing in on disaster opportunism by driving political agendas?
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Relatively speaking yes - Krugman's opportunity to cash in is considerably smaller of course but he sure is milking it for everything it's worth.

The larger point is that there is no evidence that Bush, Guiliani, et al "raced" to take advantage of the situation any more than any other leader takes advantage of any other situation. As a result, the underlying "truth" presented by Krugman here is akin to saying water is wet. Krugman has packaged this truth as a cynical attack on people he's at odds with ideologically and cares not that he's completely diverting attention from a national tragedy.

So, relatively speaking I think Krugman is the one racing to exploit a tragedy.
 
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