Paul Krugman Kills Rachel's Sally Sunshine

Run time: 05:44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT8uy4S0Ofs   Posted on YouTube: April 08, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 09, 2009 By DU Member: travelingtypist Views on DU: 2291

 
I didn't see this posted anywhere.

either they are insane, or just criminal.

:think:

From Krugman and George Soros' recent comments it sounds like it's only a matter of weeks or even days before they start sucking braaaains and public money again.

I wonder if there is a trigger line drawn where direct action is taken or whether we just keep funneling borrowed and printed money to parasitic institutions until the host dies.

Mike Whitney.
"Nearly half of the world's wealth has been consumed in one gigantic capital bonfire. No amount of "quantitative easing" will undo the damage to the economy. Here's a clip from Merrill Lynch's David Rosenberg adding more perspective to Liu's comments:

"Government cannot prevent nature from taking its course. While an additional $1.15 trillion expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet is large as a stand-alone event, it really is just a drop in the bucket when one considers that there is still almost $8 trillion of combined household
and business sector credit that must be unwound in order to
mean-revert the private sector-to-GDP ratio (which is still close to a record-high). Once again, the government is cushioning the blow, but cannot prevent nature from taking its course.

Elsewhere in Whitney's communique from two days ago, he mentions how the estimates of the Treasury, to Obama, as to exactly what is needed to shore up the economy always ends up being quite a bit off.

First we are told (oct 2008) that 700 Billion is needed. Now some 2.9 (at least, as US Senators declared last Tuesday) trillion later, we are being warned that larger figures representing even greater losses are coming in.

Some analysts say thirty trillion is the real number needed - but then what is to stop the real figure from becoming the doom and gloom figure that has been mentioned over at Scoop news by Michael Collins - a full 550 Trillion dollars or more in global losses? There are probably not enough trees on the planet to be ground up at paper mills to provide the US printing presses with that kind of money.

Worst of all, most of this money is just going to Wall Street - which has not even provided jobs to most Americans over the last fifteen years. So what the F__K is going on?

How any of this differs from something a Bushie would have done continues to confabulate me.

Obama’s Ersatz Capitalism

By Joseph Stiglitz

THE Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.

Treasury hopes to get us out of the mess by replicating the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down, with a proposal marked by overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency.

Let’s take a moment to remember what caused this mess in the first place. Banks got themselves, and our economy, into trouble by overleveraging — that is, using relatively little capital of their own, they borrowed heavily to buy extremely risky real estate assets. In the process, they used overly complex instruments like collateralized debt obligations.

…More…

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01stiglitz.html?pagewanted=1

Also here's a link to the Mike Whitney piece; it's worth reading the whole thing:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13077

laws of excess to start with) are not going to regulate their friends. Summer got over 5 million from them just last year. Money well spent it appears. Why are they still in charge? When do regulations start? I for one am not going to stand by why these yahoos and their corporate masters take us all, our children and our grandchildren to the cleaners. THEY HAVE NO INTEGRITY AND NO SOUL. Obama had better get a handle on this and war and spying on Americans and several etcs. or I will be working hard against him in the future. This is not change we can believe in.

Unfortunately too many don't. Twenty five years of Reagan's voodoo economics (which didn't make sense but were accepted because the resulting Ponzi scheme went merrily along for so long) those long decades have undermined most people's basic abilility to reason as far as economic matters are concerned.

but it is healthful.

Yeah his general principle may be right (none of us here know this for sure) but he is LOVING trashing Obama's economic policies way too much. If things turn around without nationalization then Krugman will be completely discredited. Not that it would ever keep him from appearing as an "expert" in the future (ask Bill Kristol). He's pursing his agenda like a religious zealot and any good economist or academic will tell you that that level of certainty has no place in economics. He's quickly becoming like any other pundit. Frankly I'm tired of people on both sides of the argument being so arrogant and constantly claiming to know the future for certain in an economic climate that is unprecedented.

Your ignorance is appalling.

I admit that he may be right, but the way he is evangelizing irritates me. He's very much got a "everyone is stupid if they don't believing me" tone that rubs me the wrong way. It was fine the fist 100 television appearances he made but it's getting old. He seems to take the approach that anything other than his specific plan is a sellout to the corporations. I agree that nationalization is the way to go, but it's undeniable that Geithener's plan has at least some merit. Sorry if I pissed you off, Krugman just get's under my skin a bit and he's been doing it a lot recently. His op-ed pieces seem too opinionated and not academic enough. Yeah he may be right. He probably is, but he's annoying.

You may be delighted to give your taxes to the very people that got us in this mess, but I sure as hell am not.

His plan rewards the fuck ups and punishes We, the People. What kind of merit is that?

His plan is to auction the toxic assets and let the market decide the price. You as a private citizen could invest in these assets if you choose to do so. If the assets appreciate, the tax payer and investor win, if they depreciate, then the investor and taxpayer lose (but the investor loses first). The banks want top dollar for the assets, the market wants to get them at fire sale prices. The idea is that the government partners with private investors, whoever they may be, in order to reduce the risk enough for investors to take the assets off the books of the banks. At any rate, the banks won't be getting what they want for the assets but they'll at least show the public that they're off their books and that they are now solvent.

I agree that is seems that Geithner is trying to find the most finance industry friendly solution to the problem, but that doesn't mean it won't work.

Also, even if you believe that auctioning the assets is wrong and that it's rewarding bad behavior, that also doesn't mean it won't work.

What I meant is that his plan has merit, in that it may work, NOT that is it particularly fair or not.

The only that will be accomplished is that the banksters and the wealthy will continue to ruin our economy even more than they already have.

There is nothing in that plan will help Main Street.

He is pointing out the reality that nothing will change economicaly until financial institutions are either self-regulating(haha) or use the time-tested rules of regulatory financial dealing such as put forth under FDR's banking reforms.

He had such a level of certainty and a sarcastic tone that I dismissed him. Other economists have said similar things, but I find it much easier to consider their arguments when they make them with the tone of a professional and not some overly opinionated columnist. I actually agree with him, I just hate his tone. Like Christopher Hitchens, I agree with him, but I can't stand him.