Paul Krugman Sends Wonderful Secret Message To 'Centrist Pundits'

Have you read Paul Krugman's latest New York Times column? It is a delight.

Titled "Failure Is Good," Krugman sounds off on the super committee and its general awfulness, offering a thoroughly reality-based take on why it is (spoiler alert!) doomed to fail:

So the supercommittee brought together legislators who disagree completely both about how the world works and about the proper role of government. Why did anyone think this would work?

Don't know! Seems to me that if a legislator wants to cut a program or reduce a benefit or levy a tax, he or she can jolly well write the "This Is The Spending Cut/Entitlement Reduction/Tax Increase I Want Act Of 2011," round up some cosponsors and put it to a series of votes. Of course, we live in a world where these legislators are far too scared of losing their precious seats in Congress to do the jobs they all declaim mightily they actually want to do. So they outsource the responsibility to increasingly obscure star chambers in the hopes that if the axe of outrage falls, it falls on "the system" in general rather than on them.

But that's not the best part of Krugman's latest column. The best part is this:

Oh, and let me give a special shout-out to “centrist” pundits who won’t admit that President Obama has already given them what they want. The dialogue seems to go like this. Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes?” Mr. Obama: “I support a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes.” Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes?”

You see, admitting that one side is willing to make concessions, while the other isn’t, would tarnish one’s centrist credentials. And the result is that the G.O.P. pays no price for refusing to give an inch.

Of course, we all know to whom Krugman is referring.

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Comments

[trailerguy]

11:35 AM on 11/20/2011

Pundits don't really matter much Paul. Of course, the right keeps moving the center their directions and few in the corp media all calling them on it with few exceptions(you for instance) Paul the change in this country will come from the streets. maybe notOWS, but its successor. The politcans and media businness people will not change without some real heat from the masses

[Edgewise]

12:30 PM on 11/19/2011

Obama is a centrist himself, in the sense that Krugman defines the term. Thirty years ago, he would have been grouped with moderate Republicans, in the Gerald Ford tradition, but the establishment media has shifted its definition of the political center since that time. Most people are now politically left of that centrist definition on economic issues: favoring a military withdrawal from the Mid-East, a medicare style healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy, etc.
That said, the centrist term is generally applied to the political class, not the working class, by major media pundits, since the political class is what really matters to them-- they control the purse. Tom Friedman is a centrist in the sense that he attempts to articulate a compromise between the economic establishment interests of Democrats and Republicans, something that they find quite helpful. Friedman doesn't, however, articulate a centrist position of the country as a whole, or he would have a far more populist perspective. Most of the public, for example (including some Tea Party and most OWS supporters), is outraged by the relative greed of both corporate America and government. Though there are many differences between OWS and the Tea Party (not least of which is their kind of leadership), establishments centrists like Friedman are not interested in validating similarities in economic anger. Both groups despise the establishment, and this is the class that employs Friedman. His job, as with most media centrists, is to restrict debate. to the range of acceptable opinion.

[Watching rock grow]

01:58 PM on 11/19/2011

Is he a centrist? Or forced to be one, to get the people to understand just how horrible the right has become?

[RTIII]

10:01 AM on 11/19/2011

No, Jason, he wasn't JUST referring to David Brooks....

[AbstractImp]

09:16 AM on 11/19/2011

It should fall on 'the system in general' that breeds this!

[ChicagoBob]

05:41 AM on 11/19/2011

He's right you know.

[slowsmile]

04:44 AM on 11/19/2011

Of course one way to get a true citizen opinion in the US -- and the fairest way by far -- is by a direct consensus vote of its citizens by the US government itself. But this will never happen -- because this is not the American political way, therefore political maneuverings, outside influence and corruption for whatever gain is what holds the floor in American Democracy these days.

However, in Europe it is different -- a voting consensus by the population of a country is thought to give direction to an undecided government. This is one of the key differences between European Democracy and American Democracy today. And a citizen consensus vote is what actually gives the citizen power in politics. But in American politics, which is so severely and excessively steered by outside financial and business interest, people or citizen power simply does not exist anymore.

Hence in America, through all the political distractions of a supercommittee vote that everyone knows will fail, both the Dems and the Reps can exit clean of blame -- indeed each so conveniently and fittingly blaming the other for decision failure, further confusing and manipulating its citizens, and whose outcome is so easily predictable and forgotten.

This is another prime example of the marvellously fair(sic) US Democratic process at work -- decide on nothing and wast incredible amounts of time to get advantage -- while, in the final outcome, the financial achieve everything they desire anyway under the easy and obvious disguise

[Joseph Scott]

02:10 AM on 11/19/2011

Failure to provide reasonable context to stories, allows our fourth estate to continue to dumb down the electorate with pablum not fit for naive schoolchildren.

The old joke goes:
Candidate A says "The moon is made of stone."
Candidate B says, "The moon is made of cheese."

The headline and story, amazingly, the next day will read:
A says stone, B says cheese....you decide.

It's not reporting. It's just laziness.
And it allows for such discredited ideas as laissez fairre economics, de-regulation (which brought us the global collapse by allowing unfettered Wall Street mischief), and tax cuts for the "job creators," which apparently isn't working a bit, since it was instituted way back in 2003.

But then, we are asking the plutocracy to critique itself, when it not only owns the organs of media and persuasion but also the politicians through their dependence on more and more money to run expensive campaigns; those factors, and the decisions by SCOTUS to pump unlimited corporate and private, even foreign money into campaigns, essentially is saying to us all, "the gloves are off."

There's a battle going on, the crisis is being used as its smoke screen, and they are gunning for the NEW DEAL......and working people...cops, firefighters, anyone with a job that pays a living wage, are among their targets. Along with any adult news venue: PBS , NPR.

This election could not be more important.
Obama 2012

OWS

[Trustfunded1]

01:25 AM on 11/19/2011

Krugman should save Europe.

Sarc

[skibum415]

08:10 AM on 11/20/2011

His moral and social equality is designed to fit Europe's socialist economies. What’s sad, for them and eventually us, is Greece failed, Italy will fail, and France may fail. All are socialist countries expecting cradle to grave entitlements. Now everyone in the Eurozone (outside those countries) realize those entitlements simply don't work, especially when one retires at 55 or 56 as Greeks do. So, the EU says, "We’ll bail you out Greece but you must make specific changes" to which Greek people decided to riot.

That’s the problem we have both here and there, as long as someone’s willing to bail us (or Greece) out there’s no incentive to fix the problem.

Those who believe taxing the 1% are fools. We could confiscate ALL of the 1%'s money & assets; it wouldn't be enough to run the government for even three days.

California continues expanding offering more entitlements as it's tax-base dwindles. They continue increasing taxes upon citizens and businesses to which, they move away. California will go bankrupt forcing the Federal government to bail it out. When this happens, it’ll be the President's fault (Obama & Bush) as well as Congress; not Republican's; not Democrat's. The sooner people stop pointing the finger the sooner we fix the problem.

The way to succesful cutting (significant) is for the first year or two with followed by tax increases on everyone after we see money is being properly managed. I have less issue giving more money if it isn’t being wasted.

[MrBadger]

12:55 AM on 11/19/2011

Gotta love Krugman! Boy does he call 'em like he sees em.

[tedpikul]

12:18 AM on 11/19/2011

Friedman sells Panglossian optimism to members of the professional class who don't want to feel like mean righties but don't have the courage to disobey their masters and go left.

[JBaker]

09:42 AM on 11/19/2011

Friedman has repeatedly ridiculed the rightwing obstructionism. I am inclined to believe that Krugman was going after David Brooks.

[BillAnthony]

12:15 AM on 11/19/2011

Krugman's blog is an excellent ongoing discussion of contemporary economic theory and issues. Agree or disagree with his political and economic views, he presents thoughtful discussion, an intelligent departure from so much of trashtalk media. I also like that he has an obvious knack for teaching.

The state and recent history of macro economics as a science.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html

[failureofreality]

10:51 PM on 11/18/2011

The problem is that the government has been bailing out the fools who caused the crisis. Unfortunately, the government has to stop stimulating the economy. Stimulus is chaos. We all will suffer. But in the end, we will be better off if the stimulus stops. This means stopping the 1.5 trillion annual deficit.

[MJinCanada]

01:24 AM on 11/19/2011

You are confusing TARP and the stimulus.

[mattsm84]

01:45 AM on 11/19/2011

The Banks and Automotive companies managed to repay their loans and are at this moment thriving. The problem we have now is that those profits have not translated into private sector jobs created. For you to propose that we cut government spending, which would raise unemployment, just means that you aren't very smart.

[skibum415]

11:21 AM on 11/20/2011

Sorry, not all TARP and Stimulus money has been repaid. Additionally, banks aren't loaning money is because they have a sure bet borrowing money at near zero from the government & buying bonds at 3-4%. The bank knows in 10 years they get their initial investment plus the 3-4% return whereas, if banks loan money as intended and someone defaults, the bank loses out.

Government shouldn’t bail banks out, if banks fail then it should be distributed for smaller banks to grow. This gives smaller banks with solid balance sheets the motivation to invest in a wise manner rather than going out, expecting to be bailed out (ahem MF Global). Also, how are small banks supposed to grow if "big banks" who make foolish decisions remain in business because the government is backing them. The accounts are backstopped by the FDIC (now up to $250k I think) so anyone with sense won’t keep a penny more than that at the same institution so they don't lose money should it go under.

Finally, the same applies for auto companies. If government doesn’t bail them out new and perhaps better (more efficient) auto companies who are struggling to make it on the scene because the “big three” existed would have a chance. Instead, government bailed out the auto industry and we never know what could have been. In capitalism, needs don’t go unmet. Cars will be built. Those parts will be needed, labor will be needed, distribution will be needed, etc.

[LunaPark]

10:49 PM on 11/18/2011

Krugman said "deficits don't matter", and used Italy as an example. Oops.

[JBaker]

11:08 PM on 11/18/2011

"Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." Dick Cheney.

The deficit is serious, but it is not the primary economic problem facing this country.

[bagelmart]

11:46 PM on 11/18/2011

Cheney said "deficits don't matter", and used the US as an example. Oops.

[mjeffn]

10:40 PM on 11/18/2011

Centrists are the crash test dummies for buses careening down the middle of the road.

[Dan1902]

11:43 PM on 11/18/2011

Amen.

[fokman]

10:27 PM on 11/18/2011

from" trickle down economics" of the Milton Friedman kind to the Thomas Friedman "Lexus and olive tree" hymn to "free" market capitalism has incidentally turned out to be free fall for most people world wide. Unchecked capitalism leads to poverty for most and obscene wealth for fewer and fewer. Intelligent people like Paul Krugman could see this coming as well as others. Rabid fascists like to believe otherwise. Some, like the Koch bros. can afford it others, the frustrated right wing blue collar types cannot. Too bad they're always blaming the wrong guys'n gals.

[xanas]

10:39 PM on 11/18/2011

The idea that we have "unchecked" capitalism due to lack of government intervention is about as wack as the idea that we have "unchecked" drug mafia's and gangs because we aren't doing enough to prevent people from using drugs.

Both "unchecked" capitalism/corporatism and "unchecked" drug gangs exist directly because of government intervention.

When you fix prices it causes misallocations, and the interest rate is a foundational price for entrepreneurship.

The banks that received TARP happen to also be the most risky banks after having received it.

You know who saw the downfall well before Krugman? Ron Paul. Know who else? The Austrian economists. And they don't really like that Milton Friedman guy much, because monetarism and Keynesianism are fairly close together in terms of the policies they advocate.

[failureofreality]

10:55 PM on 11/18/2011

You are right. How about a "Restore Capitalism" movement. Let the Wall Street banks fail. Then we can begin anew.

[Doc P]

11:45 PM on 11/18/2011

Know who accepted SS AND MC, under an alias no less, despite her disgust at gvernment handuts? Ayn Rand, the founder of libertarianism. This ideology spews hypocrisy from the "Fountainhead."
Your analogy of drugs and capitalism rings hollow as well, not even close.
Further, "Both "unchecked­" capitalism­/corporati­sm and "unchecked­" drug gangs exist directly because of government interventi­on", is a prime example of why libertarians poll so low and always will. Not "wack", but LAUGHABLE.
Im sure the "anarchist" part of yu would live your wildest fantasy out were govt intervention non-existent, but it aint happenin' amigo. Try Somalia, plenty of anarchy over there~

[LunaPark]

10:41 PM on 11/18/2011

How can it be free market if the government steps in and takes the risk away? Do you think the bailouts were free market? What do you suggest, the socialist union paradise of Greece? Capitalism expects if not encourages Government intervention into the market. Don't confuse capitalism with free market. What you're describing is collectivist style fascism. Milton Friedman was a Chicago school monetarist who loved the Federal Reserve which is more akin to Soviet style central planning and could not be further from free market. We need to move back towards a free market.

[jedwightn]

02:47 AM on 11/19/2011

There are no free markets and never will be.

[Joseph Scott]

03:15 AM on 11/19/2011

What you are proposing is now an impossibility.
Wishful thinking, not a policy proposal.

Do you know why? (he asks in a mirthless pedantry)

Because it's TOO LATE TO GO BACK -- the Tarp money, from Bush by the way (for the clarity of our right wing readers who seem to think Obama spelled TARP), has already been issued. The treasury was looted.

So, now the question is going to be, will the workers and the poor pay for this raiding of the treasury to bail out the icons of Free Market b.s.?
The answer is going to be no, or not quite, or probably, but not without a fight.

But it's a fight that can be won.
Obama in 2012.

OWS has changed the conversation