On Those “Lazy” Greeks….

June 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

From Paul Krugman, the day after the squeaker election on Sunday:

  …many things you hear about Greece just aren’t true. The Greeks aren’t lazy — on the contrary, they work longer hours than almost anyone else in Europe, and much longer hours than the Germans in particular. Nor does Greece have a runaway welfare state, as conservatives like to claim; social expenditure as a percentage of G.D.P., the standard measure of the size of the welfare state, is substantially lower in Greece than in, say, Sweden or Germany, countries that have so far weathered the European crisis pretty well.

So how did Greece get into so much trouble? Blame the euro.

And, as he says at the end, the election “ended up settling nothing.”  Or, it kicked the can further down the road.  Baring a miracle far greater than multiplying loaves for a few thousand, a reckoning will come due, well within our life-times.

Markets rejoicing short lived.

Kicking the Can.

for more Krugman, here’s some couched praise by Economist writer, Matthew Bishop of Krugman’s new book: End This Depression Now!

Longtime readers of Krugman will know there are at least two of him. One is the gifted winner of the Nobel in economic science, respected throughout the academy for his mastery of the dismal science; the other, the populist polemicist and baiter of the right who writes columns in The New York Times. “End This Depression Now!” is a collaborative effort by the two Krugmen. Professor Krugman usefully contributes plenty of mainstream economics in support of his stimulus plan and in order to debunk the idea that austerity policies in today’s circumstances can boost an economy by increasing confidence. (As he points out, Britain, the leading country to embrace austerity voluntarily, is hardly setting the world on fire.) Yet no opportunity to preach to the choir is missed by the populist Mr. Krugman, nor any chance to mock those he calls the “Very Serious People” who disagree with him.

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Jamie Dimon: Poster Boy for Regulation

May 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Sunday there was a spate of articles in the print media about the $2 billion “mistake” at JP Morgan, all interesting, some valuable.  Paul Krugman compresses the important point into his column today.

…banks are special, because the risks they take are borne, in large part, by taxpayers and the economy as a whole. And what JPMorgan has just demonstrated is that even supposedly smart bankers must be sharply limited in the kinds of risk they’re allowed to take on.

Krugman: Why We Regulate

Filed under Economy Tagged with , , ,

The GOP Budget: Fraudulence and Cruelty

April 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Krugman on April first was not fooling around when he denounced the GOP House budget:

The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument, no matter how absurd, that serves the interests of Team Republican.

But we should not allow events in the court to completely overshadow another, almost equally disturbing spectacle. For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.

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Equal Opportunity Balderdash

January 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It is always amazing to me how much people use “equal opportunity” as a euphemism for “personal catapult.”  Every business person I have ever met believes in advantage for self.  In fact, it’s a requirement to get venture capital funding, that the product, or idea, be protected from competition or be so high up on a tilted playing field than no competitor can make the climb.  So it is nice to see Sir Paul Krugman call out Mr Bizness himself on the issue”

 

Mr. Romney’s picture of himself as a believer in a level playing field is …  fictional. Where is the evidence that he or his party cares at all about equality of opportunity?

Let’s talk for a minute about the actual state of the playing field.

Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.

And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the Western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.

Filed under Economy, Politics Tagged with , ,