tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post1593748769346367947..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Is Krugman Mistaking E-conmen for Economists and Zealots for Zombies? Is Obama?Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-30222693178843320402010-12-23T14:45:14.759-08:002010-12-23T14:45:14.759-08:00By the way, RCD, I hope you will not consider it p...By the way, RCD, I hope you will not consider it patronizing if I say these comments of yours, neither of which I completely agreed with by any means, were very welcome, they testified to your own opinions argumentatively, didn't just spam me with links to the opinions of others, and were contributions from which I gained something conversational with an interlocutor. I bust your chops a lot, I know -- but all I have been wanting from you is more of this sort of active owned engagement. I don't mean to start a big meta discussion or anything -- just wanted to commend what I appreciate just as I never fail to excoriate what I do not.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-25113942242871096122010-12-23T13:15:33.770-08:002010-12-23T13:15:33.770-08:00Great point! Too bad it's only a product of hi...<i>Great point! Too bad it's only a product of hindsight...</i><br /><br />On whose part? Krugman argued about the inadequacy of the stimulus from the beginning and hammered the point relentlessly all along. Huge numbers of people were convinced he was right. Among them were many who admired Obama nonetheless and also many who hailed the inadequate stimulus for the unprecedented investments in renewable energy and so on that it included. This sort of recognition of what was good and even unprecedented in the stimulus along with the recognition of its inadequacy isn't really that hard to grasp, even if there is a whiff of paradox about it if it is looked at from too simplistic a vantage (the kind soundbite/twitter mediation encourages of course). So, too, many who recognized the inadequacy of the stimulus in actually-literate economic terms also grasped that politics imposes a second set of constraints that articulate "adequacy" and that Obama's stimulus also reflected those realities. Again, I get that these are transparently easy sorts of assessments, but neither do I agree that one has to be brilliant exactly to rise to the level of their demands. Krugman began by emphasizing economic inadequacy -- as befits his expertise -- but qualified his argument soon enough to do justice to those critics who argued he wasn't taking political exigencies adequately into account in pronouncing his damning verdict. None of this looks like hindsight to me, though. Krugman was prescient, persistent, and made his way to something close to his present position incredibly early.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-80794551510283235842010-12-23T01:43:08.750-08:002010-12-23T01:43:08.750-08:00jollyspaniard: The left needs to develop a populis...jollyspaniard: <i>The left needs to develop a populist message and to pursue it legislatively and unapolegeticaly. The basic economic arguments aren't hard, regressive taxation, regressive policy, military overspending, interventionist foreign policy, overeliance on imported goods and brown energy, corporate welfare. Even some teabaggers acknowledge many of these are problems.</i><br /><br />I agree but I think the libertarian aphorism "The best government is that which governs least" has become so imbedded in the American psyche that the only way the left can succeed in overcoming conservative cultural hegemony is by proposing left-libertarian solutions such as moving your money from big banks to credit unions, etc. The fact that there are countless people in the United States who depend on the government for their healthcare yet can be mislead into hating government and blaming it for all their problems shows that there is way too much education (or mass deprogramming) that needs to be done. So perhaps left-libertarian frames is the only chance we have left to be heard... It would actually be interesting to see a study/survey that analyzes whether Americans respond better to left-progressive frames or left-libertarian frames!RadicalCoolDudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06746981198102702164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-85258146940501520952010-12-23T01:17:07.894-08:002010-12-23T01:17:07.894-08:00Carrico: always making the even more sensible and ...Carrico: <i>always making the even more sensible and rhetorical case that if this deficient stimulus reflected uncircumventable constraints of a monolithically obstructionist GOP in a dysfunctional Senate, then Obama should not have peddled the fantasy of its adequacy but pinned the blame for its inadequacies on the GOP as a way of positioning himself to overcome that obstructionism on the way to making the case for further stimulus down the road</i><br /><br />Great point! Too bad it's only a product of hindsight...RadicalCoolDudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06746981198102702164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-20058457196719692522010-12-21T07:06:55.620-08:002010-12-21T07:06:55.620-08:00I think the behavour of the US government will mak...I think the behavour of the US government will make sense in hindsight if American Hegemony undergoes a collapse both financialy and militarily. Future historians could see this period 2001-201? as a period when powerful vested interets effectively looted and offshored a good portion of America's wealth. Not a conspiracy per se but there's plenty of historical precedent for this kind of behavour. I don't take any plesure in saying that btw.<br /><br />The left needs to develop a populist message and to pursue it legislatively and unapolegeticaly. The basic economic arguments aren't hard, regressive taxation, regressive policy, military overspending, interventionist foreign policy, overeliance on imported goods and brown energy, corporate welfare. Even some teabaggers acknowledge many of these are problems.jollyspaniardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10999141103840765243noreply@blogger.com