Politics
- ‘Zombie’ Economics Have Eaten Rubio’s Brains – Paul Krugman thinks Republicans need to stop peddling discredited ideas
- Rubio and the Zombies – NYTimes.com
Joe Scarborough just isn’t giving up on pounding away at Paul Krugman. Just count the use of logically fallacious arguments in Scarborough piece. Joe stop being a douche. I like you Joe despite your being a bombastic blowhard but your obsession about this disagreement you have with Krugman is getting silly and irritating.
Pro-austerity Joe fails to recall back in May of last year…
- Biggest Loser After Anti-Austerity Vote in France? Infotainment Host, Joe Scarborough | Taylor Marsh
And ,,,
- How To Fix The Economy: Joe Scarborough Trolls Paul Krugman | Universal Hub (the emphasis is mine)
…By calling Paul Krugman’s professional view on the national debt and U.S. economic priorities ‘extreme’, without also responding to the arguments that Krugman makes to support his view on the debt and U.S. economic priorities, Scarborough’s response falls outside the bounds of civil debate. How so? Joe makes it clear he does not and will not consider Paul Krugman’s professional view a serious argument. This is the picture of disrespect. What is less civil than disrespect?Since Paul Krugman’s recent appearance on Morning Joe, Joe’s been a prickly towards Krugman and even his own Morning Joe audience. Joe’s response is to label Krugman’s economic arguments as extreme and to disparage his own audience on the air. Is he trying to goose rating or is this Joe benig Joe?
Krugman’s thesis is that our national priority should be full employment — ~5%-6% unemployment — and that deficit reduction now, the policy of austerity, will not produce growth, it will produce recession. Krugman supports deficit reduction in the long term, and job growth now. Scarborough says that’s an extreme view and argues Krugman should not be taken any more seriously than Wayne LaPierre….
Maybe Joe is just riled and on the defensive from this…
- No Austerity Has Helped Any Economy (Sunday, 03 February 2013)
Paul Krugman’s recent column looks at the romance between the “austerians” — the promoters of austerity for economically troubled nations — and the need to inflict pain to get economic gain. His bottom line — no country that has tried austerity has seen a major economic benefit.
My bottom line — add “to its people” to the end of Krugman’s bottom line and you’ve got it exactly. There is an obvious economic benefit, but only for a few.
Let’s start with Krugman. He begins (my emphasis):
Looking for Mister Goodpain
Three years ago, a terrible thing happened to economic policy, both here and in Europe. Although the worst of the financial crisis was over, economies on both sides of the Atlantic remained deeply depressed, with very high unemployment. Yet the Western world’s policy elite somehow decided en masse that unemployment was no longer a crucial concern, and that reducing budget deficits should be the overriding priority.
That’s a familiar story, one we’ve detailed before. The answer to economic crisis is always budget cuts and austerity. Then he pivots to austerian attempts to find an example.
In recent columns, I’ve argued that worries about the deficit are, in fact, greatly exaggerated — and have documented the increasingly desperate efforts of the deficit scolds to keep fear alive. Today, however, I’d like to talk about a different but related kind of desperation: the frantic effort to find some example, somewhere, of austerity policies that succeeded. For the advocates of fiscal austerity — the austerians — made promises as well as threats: austerity, they claimed, would both avert crisis and lead to prosperity.
The column is interesting because it lays out that history. First the example was Ireland, which the head of the European Central Bank said in 2010 was “the role model for all of Europe’s debtor nations.” But events proved them wrong; Ireland is worse off today than it was back then. So then the U.K. became the touted model, until it wasn’t. Then little Latvia, which has recovered some, was pushed forward; but Latvia still has 14% unemployment. Hmm.
Krugman’s conclusion — nowhere in the world is there an example of austerity that works as the austerians said it would. The policy is “wrong on all fronts.” Yet they (Our Betters) still promote it. (read the complet article…)
And new this evening…
Health Fitness & Diet
- (KISS) Keep It Simple Stupid! | EvolvingHealthConcepts
Kiss “Calories In, Calories Out” goodbye! It simply can’t explain the complex issue of weight gain (see “Your Trainer May be Making You Fat“). Jonathan Bailor of “The Smarter Science of Slim” has recently posted a fantastic video illustrating why eating less and exercising more may not be working for you. Researchers today are finally acknowledging that the dietary advice we’ve been given for decades is making us fatter and sicker than ever. It’s time to “unclog the sink” – getting slim involves common sense, simple biology and proven science. - Fat Head » Interview: Jonathan Bailor, author of ‘The Smarter Science of Slim’