Category Archives: Political Economy

King Krugman Cross With German ‘Know-Nothing’

Democrats, Economy, Europe, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Economy, Republicans

Or as I dubbed the scolded Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück: “The German who’s really an Austrian … economist.”

“Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has blasted Germany’s Peer Steinbrück for his resistance to economic stimulus spending. Now the ‘boneheaded,’ ‘know-nothing’ finance minister has sent Krugman an invitation to come to Berlin to discuss their differences.”

“Krugman has repeatedly emphasized his belief that deficit spending is among the few bulwarks against a reprise of the Great Depression and he hasn’t shied from pillorying those with a cooler attitude towards stimulus.”

Steinbrück has been among his favorite targets. Krugman has blasted Steinbrück, who took office hoping to balance the German budget and together with Chancellor Angela Merkel has withheld his support for further European or national stimulus packages, for his “know-nothing diatribes” and ” boneheadedness.” Krugman’s most painful insult of all may have been his suggestion that the criticisms of “crass Keynesianism” offered by Steinbrück, a member of Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party, most closely resemble the thinking of America’s Republican Party.

Why the invite? Where’s Steinbrück’s Tutonic spirit? And what arrogance Krugman evinces. Even if his “crass Keynesianism” was correct, which it isn’t (neither is Keynesiansim merely “crass”; it’s criminal)–what about respecting the sovereignty of strangers? In their misguided arrogance, Dems and Republicans are of a piece.

What’s more, neither foolish faction has grasped that America is no longer a super power, able to lord it over the rest.

Poisonous Pundits Never Go Away

America, Economy, Elections 2008, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Journalism, Media, Political Economy

Just a few months back, during the Bush era, high-ranking commentators like Larry Kudlow and proxies were touting the strength of the US stock market. Stocks were undervalued. The economy was “strongly reaccelerating.” “Goldilocks, Goldilocks,” Kudlow would crow from the CNBC rooftop. (What on earth does than mean?)

Kudlow and Company could not say enough about the economic benefits of a depreciating dollar. A weak dollar was an asymptomatic blessing, helping to make “US assets very cheap,” and thus ameliorating the trade imbalance. Never mind that it has made Americans poorer.

That was the man and his entourage’s cri de coeur.

“Today’s economic weakness is coming from the business side, not the sub-prime/housing/consumer side,” Kudlow wrote in January 2008.

Back then, Kudlow called for cheaper money and more credit: “the Fed needs to deliver a 50 basis point rate cut at its January 30 meeting. A big-bang rate cut would help businesses, consumers, and mortgage owners. It would make the cost of money cheaper and expand the overall liquidity base of the economy. … Inflation is the most overrated issue out there,” Kudlow asserted.

Kudlow failed to see that government had set the scene for the “minority Meltdown.”

Another snake-oil merchant is Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal. He wrote a book praising Bush’s quicksand society. It was titled “Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer.” Fox New’s Greta Van Susteren has seen fit to make the man who praised the state’s house-for-every-Hispanic schemes an authority on our economic woes.

Like Kudlow, Moore’s congenital inability to call the situation has not dented his career.

Now Kudlow has switched, conveniently, cribbing Peter Schiff’s analysis and pretending he was capable of the same prophetic predictions.

Why does he retain his job?

If you don’t believe me, check out the manner in which Schiff was maligned in 2007 by Kudlow’s crowd as another “Michael Moore,” for forewarning about the consequences of the US’s consumption and credit-based economy.

Voodoo Child Talks Up A Storm

Barack Obama, Economy, Political Economy, Republicans, Socialism

The excerpt is from my new WND.com column, “Voodoo Child Talks Up A Storm”:

“Because consumption is its be-all and end-all, consumer confidence is crucial to the Cult of Keynes. If the consumer is not crazy confident—even when he ought not to be—goes the ‘thinking,’ he’ll quit consuming until he drops”:

“We will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times,’ barked Barack. ‘This administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to break this destructive cycle, restore confidence, and re-start lending.'”

“Our economic animists are hoping that the holy spirit of ‘confidence’ will enter the once bitten, twice shy lender, and make him lend. The same spell is supposed to mysteriously move the unemployed and penniless to spend.”

“In his wonderfully learned book, The Failure of the ‘New Economics,’ Henry Hazlitt (a favorite of mine, as you might have guessed) summed-up the essence of Keynes’ “General Theory”:

“The great virtue is Consumption, extravagance, improvidence. The great vice is Saving, thrift, ‘financial prudence.'” …

Read why the “Voodoo Child is true to the mores and methodology of Keynes,” in “Voodoo Child Talks Up A Storm,” now on WND.com.

Economic Animism

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Economy, Neoconservatism, Political Economy, Propaganda, Republicans

Republikeynesians, especially, have been demanding that in his first address to a joint session of Congress, Obama “talk up” the economy. “What Obama Should Do,” blared the typical headline in the neoconservative National Review. And the answers: “Be positive, if prudent,” instructed Bill O’Reilly. “Restore economic confidence,” advised Conrad Black, a conservative who also believes that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the champion of freedom. (Black, who, incongruously, combines a call for serious central planning with a condemnation of it, has, seemingly, learned nothing from falling prey to the same predators.)

This tired battle cry just goes to show the depths of this lot’s economic “thinking.”

Most Republicans have taken up economist John Maynard Keynes’ kooky concept of “animal spirits.” This was Keynes’ condescending reference to consumer confidence. Keynes believed that the fickle consumer’s biorhythms controlled the economy (I kid you not). Which explains why confused Republicans, like Democrats, keep kibitzing about “a crisis in consumer confidence.”

The implication being that “confidence” will galvanize the jobless and the penniless to spend.

I sincerely hope not.

By the way, the Voodoo Child has obliged. This is the first line in Obama’s pie-in-the-sky speech:

“[T]onight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”