Monday, March 22, 2010

It Ain't a Joke, Paul

Paul Krugman trots out his "five-year plan" and tells us it really is a joke:
It turns out to be almost exactly five years since I began crusading for health reform. At the time, all the buzz was about privatizing Social Security, and many people still thought it would happen; meanwhile, I wrote that

serious health care reform isn’t on the table, and in the current political climate it probably can’t be. You see, the health care crisis is ideologically inconvenient.

And here we are: Social Security still stands, and health reform — imperfect, compromised, but real — has happened.

Update: The title of this post, with its evocation of the Soviet Union, was what is known in the trade as a “joke.”
Actually, the only "joke" is the false belief that Krugman and others are promoting that Congress has repealed the Law of Scarcity. Furthermore, don't forget that Lenin himself declared that government-provided medical care would be at the heart of the new communist utopia.

2 comments:

Justin Murray, CFO said...

There's a simple rule on the Internet, been around for two decades. When someone posts the word "joke" after the fact, then it's obvious that they're serious, said something incredibly foolish, and is now trying to save face. I'm surprised Krugman has this kind of concern. Even more shocking is that he didn't just outright delete the whole thing and pretend it never existed.

JB said...

Hi,

I added you to my RSS reader for a few days -- but now I have deleted you. I am a trader and I read around 10 finance and economics blogs, including Paul Krugman. I thought that it would be interesting to have an opposing point of view. I am not a Keynesian or a Monetarist, a Republican or a Democrat -- or, for that matter, an American. I am interested in understanding the world and making money out of it, and watching a debate about a subject is a good way of understanding it.

I am removing your blog because you have confirmed this impartial observer's view of the proponents of the anti-Keynesian argument. Your writing is humourless and full of bile; you come across as a wild-eyed ranter. I suspect your opinions are driven more by ideology than by intelligent observation of the world. Krugman is not always right, but he is much cleverer and much more charming than you. Those traits make him worth reading.

I would be interested to know if you think there is a blogger on your side of the debate who is more effective.

JB