06-11-2003 22:29									#31
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quote: Originally posted by rah And I'm sure his liberal tendencies and rabid anti-Bush retoric have nothing to do with it. His theories are biased by his obvious political agenda. But I'll give him some credit but refuse to put him on the high pedestal that you have done. He does do a better job than some of his peers on the right. And no, I have no intention of reading his book. (yes, my biases are showing also. )

They are showing your lack of understanding of Mr Krugman
His 'anti-bush retoric' came about due to this disagreement with the massive tax cuts (the total deterioration is equivalent to nearly $800bn a year).
Therefore his poltical agenda came from his theories, not the other way around as you are suggesting.

	06-11-2003 23:15									#32
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I would like to see what Adam Smith has to say about this.

	07-11-2003 00:03									#33
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quote: Originally posted by el freako Therefore his poltical agenda came from his theories, not the other way around as you are suggesting.

I think you're being a little naive. He's a confirmed liberal that wanted on the Clinton team but was passed over. I'll agree that he has some very good things to say when he's attacking Bush's economic policies, but it goes beyond that. When he reported that most of Bush's profit on the sale of the Rangers was just a gift to a sitting governor, that wasn't an attack on theories, that's an attack on the man's intergrity. And to make it worse, when he discovered he was in error, he only admitted it on his web site and not in the NY times. (which speaks towards his intergity). Hard to say it's ALL about economics and not politics.

But I'll admit he usually knows his stuff, but you have to look at the framework that it's being produced in.

	07-11-2003 00:22									#34
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Ah, I wasn't aware of that - fair point then.

	07-11-2003 00:31									#35
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That's only fair. I wasn't aware about just how highly he was respected in certain circles till I did a little more research. He seems to know his stuff. And it's hard to tell which came first, the theories or the politics. But he has done a few seemingly personal attacks so I have to at least consider possible bias when reading

	07-11-2003 01:00									#36
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Given the fact that he's human, I assume that bias is always a given.

	07-11-2003 01:19									#37
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Krugman certainly has the chops as an economist - Ph. D. MIT, taught at MIT, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, won John Bates Clark Award (given every two years to the best american economist under 40). But I don't really pay much attention to his columns any more - for exactly the reasons rah mentioned. About the time the current President Bush took office, the economic content of Krugman's columns dramatically decreased, while the personal invective dramatically increased. Sour grapes? Maybe. But its grousing, not economics, and anybody can do that.

I happen to agree with his basic point in the article cited:

quote: My purpose is not to denigrate the impressive estimated 7.2 percent growth rate for the third quarter of 2003. It is, rather, to stress the obvious: we've had our hopes dashed in the past, and it remains to be seen whether this is just another one-hit wonder.

but then comes the dig,

quote: To put it more bluntly: it would be quite a trick to run the biggest budget deficit in the history of the planet, and still end a presidential term with fewer jobs than when you started. And despite yesterday's good news, that's a trick President Bush still seems likely to pull off.

This is not at all a reasonable argument, since many of those jobs, as Krugman well knows, were tied to the .com bubble. Surely Krugman is not suggesting we revisit that situation.

Krugman often rails against economic "experts" who attempt to sell a political agenda.

quote: It was, in a way, strange for me to be part of the Reagan Administration. I was then and still am an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which I regard as the most decent social arrangement yet devised. I am also unable to pretend to respect "policy entrepreneurs", the intellectually dishonest self-proclaimed experts who tell politicians what they want to hear. The Reagan Administration was, of course, full of people who hated the welfare state and had very little interest in the truth.

But Krugman, in his own way, does the same thing.

	07-11-2003 04:00									#38
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quote: Originally posted by rah When he reported that most of Bush's profit on the sale of the Rangers was just a gift to a sitting governor, that wasn't an attack on theories, that's an attack on the man's intergrity. And to make it worse, when he discovered he was in error, he only admitted it on his web site and not in the NY times. (which speaks towards his intergity).

Bush has no integrity. You gotta link or the admission of error? I've seen no disproof yet that the Rangers sale wasn't a gift (given how many gifts of such a nature Shrub has received over the past two decades). Really, Rah, do you honestly believe Dubya has integrity?

	07-11-2003 06:09									#39
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quote: Originally posted by JohnT NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Jobless claims plunged in the United States last week to their lowest level since January 2001, the government said Thursday

Bush caused mass suicides among the jobless!^-^

	07-11-2003 06:20									#40
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Hey, if this is good news it can't be because of anything that George Bush did. We all know that he is a very evil man and he only does evil things. I say raise taxes immediately and stop this delusion at once! There is no such thing as a bad tax anyway. Everyone knows that. And think of the children...

	07-11-2003 07:04									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Adam Smith This is not at all a reasonable argument, since many of those jobs, as Krugman well knows, were tied to the .com bubble. Surely Krugman is not suggesting we revisit that situation.

Adem: From what I heard most of the job loses came from the manufactuing and construction fields. I'm sure the dot com bubble caused large loses in that field but I'd be willing to bet that on a nation wide scale that industry only accounts for a small portion of the total job loses.

I don't have data though. Do you?

	07-11-2003 10:06									#42
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Loss of manufacturing and construction jobs would not surprise me. Thats part of the business cycle, which presidents don't really control. (Right, Professor Krugman?) What I meant by .com was not just the .com jobs themselves, but also other jobs tied to the loss of paper wealth in the .com bubble. Since people make consumption decisions based their wealth, not just their current income, other jobs would be affected. I don't have any data handy. I am sure somebody around here does.

	07-11-2003 20:42									#43
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A reduction in the unemployment rate today to 6%. 126,000 new jobs were created in October and a revised 125,000 were created in September.

Since our population grows so quickly, and people dropped out of the workforce altogether during the recession, that's still not good enough. But the fact that there is any jobs growth at all is an encouraging change from previous months.