Monday, October 22, 2012

Krugman: Hey, the Economy is Booming!

Wow, just in time! The election is two weeks away and finally -- FINALLY! -- the U.S. economy is doing great. Don't take my word for it, take Paul Krugman's:
The U.S. economy finally seems to be recovering in earnest, with housing on the rebound and job creation outpacing growth in the working-age population. But the news is good, not great — it will still take years to restore full employment — and it has been a very long time coming.
 Of course, the reason we are not absolutely booming is because of "Republican scorched-earth politics," except for the fact that the Democrats had an absolute majority in the Senate and huge majority in the House, and no Republican in sight to do anything but weep. Yet, even with that filibuster-proof majority, the Obama stimulus "was both too small and too short-lived."

Yes, Goldstein blocked everything, despite the fact that even Goldstein was neutered for two years.

11 comments:

Curt- said...

The insanity is that Krugman goes into the same old stupidity in this column, saying that the reason things aren't getting any better is because the bailouts didn't come soon enough, and weren't big enough.

I use this mantra to ridicule Keynesians and show that no matter how much they print, or when, they can always claim that the failure of their policies is because it wasn't big, or early, enough. They have made themselves infallible by never questioning the bailouts and stimulus *themselves*. Always, it's someone else's fault.

Tel said...

What is "full employment" again? Every time they change the counting system I need to have it explained to me all over.

Mike said...

Tel,

Let me help you out.

Full employment is whatever you need it to be to serve a specific political narrative at a specific point in time.

Cheers :-)

Anthony Lima said...

Maybe fewer people just don't find it worth working anymore? I mean there was a time when fewer women worked because one income was enough. Maybe we are becoming wealthy enough to where now one partner can concentrate on other work besides the kind that brings home the bacon

Lord Keynes said...

Anderson:

"Wow, just in time! The election is two weeks away and finally -- FINALLY! -- the U.S. economy is doing great. Don't take my word for it, take Paul Krugman's"

Krugman:

"The U.S. economy finally seems to be recovering in earnest, with housing on the rebound and job creation outpacing growth in the working-age population. But the news is good, not great"

In other words:
Anderson: "Krugman says the economy is great!"
Krugman: "the economy is showing signs of recovery, that is good, not great".

Anderson should win an award for his straw man arguments.

Pulverized Concepts said...

Obviously, Republicans like claiming that it’s all Mr. Obama’s fault, and that electing Mr. Romney would magically make everything better. But nobody should believe them.

Didn't a majority of the electorate believe the Obama campaign rhetoric of 2008? Where has that gotten them? The sad thing is that ANY government activity in the economic sphere will create negativities, yet innocents believe the myth that the government can "create" jobs. It can't. What it can do is redistribute wealth and impose regulations, neither of which is an economic positive.

Larry said...

LK,

I believe William is employing hyperbole in his statement, thus he is not creating a straw man.

Anonymous said...

Rich Larry. You mean using hyperbole cannot be the same as creating a straw man? They usually go hand in hand. And LK has been commented on this blog for a long time about Anderson's loose grasp of reality, subtlety, and what Krugman has actually said so this is not a one time occurrence.

Scott D said...

A straw man would be if Anderson said Krugman claimed that the economy was doing great, then proceeded to show that the economy is not, in fact, doing great. Read carefully. He didn't make that argument. So the hyperbole doesn't equate to a straw man. The argument that he does make comes after that, if you keep reading.

Keep working on that reading comprehension and learn to properly recognize and catalog fallacies. It'll really strengthen your arguments.

macroman said...

Curt, I assume you also ridicule the fans of this blog because every time anyone criticises the free market by pointing at history they say The free market has never been properly tried.

Bala said...

"And LK has been commented on this blog for a long time about Anderson's loose grasp of reality"

Ah!!!!! There it comes. The perfect case of the pot calling the non-kettle black. Since when did LK, with his disconnect with reality, become an authority on anyone's grasp on reality? Very interesting.....