Monday, August 15, 2016

Paul Krugman, "Wisdom, Courage and the Economy": Honesty Is the Best Policy



In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Wisdom, Courage and the Economy," Paul Krugman concludes (my emphasis in red):

"When conservatives promise fantastic growth if we give them another chance at Bushonomics, one main reason is that they don’t want to admit how much they would have to cut popular programs to pay for their tax cuts. When centrists urge us to look away from questions of distribution and fairness and focus on growth instead, all too often they’re basically running away from the real issues that divide us politically.

So it’s actually quite brave to say: 'Here are the things I want to do, and here is how I’ll pay for them. Sorry, some of you will have to pay higher taxes.' Wouldn’t it be great if that kind of policy honesty became the norm?"

Heck, wouldn't it be great if any semblance of honesty became the norm?

This in a Washington Post editorial today entitled "A porous ethical wall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department" (again, my emphasis in red):

"Should Ms. Clinton win in November, she will bring to the Oval Office a web of connections and potential conflicts of interest, developed over decades in private, public and, in the case of her family’s philanthropic work, quasi-public activities. As secretary, she pledged to keep her official world and her family’s foundation separate, and she failed to keep them separate enough. Such sloppiness would not be acceptable in the White House."

"Sloppiness"? Heck, Hillary's "extreme carelessness" involving her home server, which placed US national security at risk, should have been enough to preclude her candidacy.

Mention of the Clinton Foundation or Hillary's home server in Krugman's op-ed of today's date? Fat chance of that coming from a partisan extremist omniscient progressive who wrote in an October 6, 2011 New York Times op-ed entitled "Confronting the Malefactors":

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

And then there was Krugman's trillion dollar platinum coin proposal, which even Jon Stewart labeled a "stupid f#cking idea."

Shakespeare wrote in "All's Well that Ends Well," "No legacy is so rich as honesty." Ah, but that was so long ago.

2 comments:

  1. The only way to dig out of the deficit abyss is higher growth than 2%, but 2% GDP growth is the 'progressive-DNC-HRC-obamanomics' "best we can do".

    The 'conservative-GOP' policy for 4% + growth is to unwind the oppressive regulatory burden, mostly in energy and other NOT-tax cut diktats that cascade from the lawyers in Obama's regulatory labyrinth. The Federal government IS a jobs program for all the surplus lawyers who control the Democratic Party.

    As for honesty? Missing In Action during the entire reign of America's 44th president. Perhaps that is why #44 anointed Hillary to continue the destruction of the American economy, armed with the platform of what is called the Democratic Party.

    Krugman does not bother to read the Party platforms. His assignment is to deflect any attempt to actually discuss the present, e.g. "Bushonomics".

    Krugman must be having night terrors when his brain tries to reconcile all the falsehoods in a series of nightmares...

    Oh, wait. I am the one with the night terrors, traumatized by the daily drumbeat of so very many lies from the Democratic Party I once trusted. Cancelled my NYT subscription in 2008, in part due to Krugman's metamorphoses from must-read economist to political hack.

    Still having night terrors as defined where your screams while dreaming wake you up.

    The Federal government needs a long time-out: no more new laws or regulations until they clean up the avalanche of legalese legislation and regulations that only the lawyers can pretend to understand. Are they not still trying to regulate dust on dirt roads?





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  2. "Heck, wouldn't it be great if any semblance of honesty became the norm?"

    YES IT WOULD. Swimmer Ryan Lochte is proof of the ok-to-lie moral laxity that has transformed America.

    Worse will be the Ryan Lochte's "white privilege" snowflaking helicoptering armchair psychoanalyses

    oh, never mind.

    In other news, the Egyptian Synchronized Swim team qualified for the finals today. If only THAT were the big story out of Rio instead of flogging the Lochte Lies.

    too many now parsing the word ransom.

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