Paul Krugman: GOP Doctrine 'Completely Divorced From Reality'

New York Times:

Listen to just about any speech by a Republican presidential hopeful, and you’ll hear assertions that the Obama administration is responsible for weak job growth. How so? The answer, repeated again and again, is that businesses are afraid to expand and create jobs because they fear costly regulations and higher taxes.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[ChrisInYao]

02:25 PM on 10/01/2011

The U.S. economy should have collapsed much more profoundly during the financial meltdown of 2008. It didn't genuinely fail and that was in part, what was needed. People didn't really demand any real change, and instead kept the old system facade propped up with what amounts to 'smoke and mirrors.' The fact is that the world's strongest economies cannot be returned to their former glory (if there ever was one), and emerging ones cannot expect to survive with the models that have been tried. Growth as we have known it, as development and economic expansion, mass consumerism, is on it's way out. It's as if we have no way to grow except as human beings and human spirit. More fundamental than a jobs or spending or even an environmental crisis, we are in a spiritual one and have been for a very long time.

[builderman55]

11:15 AM on 10/01/2011

This just in: All of the GOP candidates for President sign document declaring that gravity does not exist! Tea Party demands that any GOPlutocrat candidate sign if they want their support...

[wsdave]

10:53 AM on 10/01/2011

And this from a guy who honestly thinks we should be spending 120% of our GDP to create jobs, and that (somehow) we'll pay it off later.

[Rick4646]

06:52 AM on 10/01/2011

Krugman is talking about jobs being the focal point. The GOP has not put up one legitimate bill to help employers hiring; and either filibustered or not put up a vote about 30 other bills. Their focal point is not creating jobs, the Ryan bill they voted for will lay off about 700,000 while giving the rich a 10% tax cut; many GOP governors have needlessly laid off hundreds of thousands teachers, police, firemen, etc. and given more tax breaks to the rich also.

[leorangerie]

01:55 AM on 10/01/2011

I realize that PK is worshipped in these environs, but as glib and bright as he is, has he ever made a business a success? Has he ever built a company from the ground up, and shown us what it takes in the real world? As they say in Texas, he's all hat and no cattle.

[builderman55]

11:18 AM on 10/01/2011

Actual, in these environs, we like to listen to people who's ideas are actually grounded in something called "reality" unlike any of the idjets running forth GOPlutocrat party. After all, it was all those people who were "actually running businesses" that drove the economy off the rails. I own my own Construction business and wouldn't vote GOPlutocrat if they were the only party on the ticket. I prefer to vote for people who actually think...

[leorangerie]

11:57 AM on 10/01/2011

I still haven't figured out why there is such cultish 'groupthink' on the HP. If you disagree with one of the darlings, like Krugman, then suddenly you are a 'GOPlutocrat'. It worries me that there is not more free thinking on the far left. There used to be. I'm hardly a GOP type...but I think Krugman is a smart man with an empty bag of ideas. So it goes.

[rdk70816]

10:13 PM on 09/30/2011

Paul Krugman is one of those guys who can stare into space, say stupid things, and have people actually listen to him.

[Ama1]

10:24 PM on 09/30/2011

You, on the other hand, are someone who thinks you are smart, but while trying to discredit someone who actually is smart, convince the rest of us of your stupidity.

[Ama1]

10:33 PM on 09/30/2011

Wow. This gets through the moderator but nothing about Austrian Schnapps and skiing or leverage. Sorry RDK.

[leorangerie]

01:51 AM on 10/01/2011

Exactly what is so smart about this guy? Never run a business, never made a success outside of a classroom. So...prizes, yes...boots on the ground wisdom? None.

[builderman55]

11:19 AM on 10/01/2011

And you rdk, appear to have written this while staring into space and hacking stupidly at your keyboard, because no one who is "thinking" actually pays any attention to you.

[rdk70816]

11:21 PM on 10/03/2011

Thank you for paying attention and not thinking.

[libertyreturns]

09:12 PM on 09/30/2011

Keynesian Economics is "completely divorced from reality"
Austrian Economics IS reality.

[Ama1]

09:14 PM on 09/30/2011

Explain.

[rdk70816]

10:15 PM on 09/30/2011

You can expect an economic multiplier on money spent on goods and services but not if the money is borrowed outside the USA.

[Mikdow]

12:41 PM on 10/01/2011

Austrian economics essentially says that all known tools for predicting economic futures are incapable of predicting human behavior. It is a school of thought that began with the Hapsburgs in Austria, hence the name, and was popular during the run up to the New Deal. It is interesting that it is being brought up again, and by the same parties who brought it up before the depression: the bankers.

This view allows them a laissez-faire attitude towards the markets.

Interestingly, the awesome power of advertising proves how wrong the Austrian economists are.

[LCDTV]

10:06 PM on 09/30/2011

funny. Austrian is a country.

[wsdave]

10:56 AM on 10/01/2011

Austria is a country, "Austrian" is a school of economic thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School

[Max Headroom]

07:06 PM on 09/30/2011

"Large segments of the G.O.P. reject climate science and even the theory of evolution, so why expect evidence to matter for the party’s economic views?"

Nuff said...

[wsdave]

10:57 AM on 10/01/2011

Large segments of the Libs think that the New Deal got us out of the Depression, so why should we expect evidence to matter to them?

[Rodger leMonde]

06:02 PM on 09/30/2011

Well they have been separated for as long as I can recall.

[Kye154]

06:01 PM on 09/30/2011

We have been fed a constant stream of propaganda about regulations being too much since the days of Reagan. That has always been the Republican's drumbeat. NOw, of course, we have too little, where the SEC is a former shadow of itself and doesn't regulate Wall Street like it should. Same with banking regulations that got thrown out in 1999, that led to the screwy mortgage mess, and the bank meltdowns in 2008 who ended up getting TARP bailout funding. Isn't it funny how REpublicans are more interested in beating up on the EPA, who is also not regulating like they should, when Republicans are still opposed to regulating Wall Street and the banks after the mess they made.

[Pinchy]

05:42 PM on 09/30/2011

Says the fool who talks about wars with space aliens to stimulate our economy.

[muddywood]

05:27 PM on 09/30/2011

Paul Krugman is in denial about to total and undeniable failure of Keynesian economics.

[Rodger leMonde]

06:04 PM on 09/30/2011

If that is trut , prove it, if it is opinion, stuff it.

[Ama1]

06:20 PM on 09/30/2011

Please explain how Keynesian economics has failed, particularly with regard to the great depression.

[hoperequired]

06:51 PM on 09/30/2011

You DO know that now economists say FDR actually prolonged the depression by his policies?

[wsdave]

01:11 PM on 10/01/2011

"However, Krugman has stated that the U.S. needs a WW2 "sized" stimulus (>40% GDP) to put the economy back on a path of real growth. Mathematic­ally this approach makes sense."

No, it doesn't make sense. We had a WW2 sized stimulus in WW2 and it didn't solve the problem.

What Krugman refuses to acknowledge (and politicians as well) is that the party is OVER. Everyone knows that "everything" is made in China, Japan, and South Korea these days. Yet despite the world-class production of those three countries, their COMBINED GDP is lower than the U.S.

We've been living on borrowed money and borrowed time for far too long, and now it's caught up with us. The rest of the world doesn't revolve around the U.S. as it once did, and our $14T economy is simply unsustainable.

The EU averages 8-10% unemployment, and a GDP of about $7T (that HALF of what we do). THAT is what we need to get used to.

[Tquin]

04:54 PM on 09/30/2011

Krugman has no concept of reality and talks wirthout thinking. If his Nobel was real, why can't he help Obama get out of this mess????????????????????????

[Max Headroom]

07:07 PM on 09/30/2011

Because nobody in the O admin listens to Krugman. Anyone with similar thinking has left the admin one after another.

[outwithshelby]

12:02 AM on 10/01/2011

Americans are going to help President Obama by voting as many republicans out of office that we can.

[gman87]

04:00 PM on 09/30/2011

RE being "completely divorced from reality", pot...meet kettle Nobel Boy.

[joeisright]

03:32 PM on 09/30/2011

Krugman's personal attacks, and fudging of the facts to achieve it, is simply amazing.

[angry in ct]

03:40 PM on 09/30/2011

Says the wealthy, tax cut enjoying, I've got mine everyone else fend for themselves neocon.

[ahornick]

03:56 PM on 09/30/2011

Exactly which "personal attack and fudged facts" has you amazed?