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  • Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

    The nerve of these two....


    http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articl...ers.aspx#page1

    “For the first time in 75 years, we are experiencing a protracted recession due to a lack of demand,” Summers said during a speech to the Center for Global Development in Washington. “It’s now been about five years since the recession began and it appears the stagnation will be with us for another long interval.”

    “There is not enough demand,” Krugman said during an appearance at the Economic Policy Institute, where he gave a talk to promote his new book, End This Depression Now. “We focused a lot – too much – on the financial sector’s problems. Yet that is long since gone and we still don’t have a steady recovery. That tells us the crisis was far more about household debt.”

    Both economists blamed government fiscal policy for the prolonged nature of the downturn, though they focused on different aspects of it. Krugman said premature budget austerity in the U.S. had forced the destruction of more than a million public sector jobs and lost contracting opportunities from reduced infrastructure investment. Unemployment would be close to 7 percent instead of the current 8.2 percent, he said, without the government spending cuts demanded by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

    Summers, taking a slightly longer view, pointed to the rise in income inequality in the U.S., which on the eve of the Great Recession had reached levels not seen since the eve of the Great Depression. The top 1 percent of earners now takes home around 20 percent of the nation’s total income compared to 10 percent two decades ago, he said, a trend that accelerated through the downturn and is depressing demand among the poor and middle class who have jobs.

    Summers said higher productivity from technological innovation that is eliminating manufacturing jobs all over the globe and the growing importance of high value-added business services were the driving forces behind inequality, and little could be done, including through education policy, to reverse those trends. Yet income inequality needed to be addressed if average households were going to resume spending at rates seen in previous economic expansions.

  • #2
    Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

    Originally posted by Slimprofits View Post
    The nerve of these two....
    What do you mean?
    raja
    Boycott Big Banks • Vote Out Incumbents

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

      Summers was CLEARLY one of the architects of this massive financialization clusterpluck, and Krugman is a cheerleader for the continuation of it.

      What a clusterpluck.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

        Originally posted by doom&gloom View Post
        Summers was CLEARLY one of the architects of this massive financialization clusterpluck, and Krugman is a cheerleader for the continuation of it.

        What a clusterpluck.
        Yes, indeed. These bast@*#$ are so insufferably arrogant they're clueless.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

          Barry Ritholz pulls no punches...

          http://www.capitalismwithoutfailure....an-miller.html

          On Larry Summers: We now find out that the single biggest asshole in America is Larry Summers, who browbeat Obama into bailing out Citibank. Larry Summers oversaw the repeal of Glass Steagall as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Whitehouse, and oversaw the Commodities Futures Modernization Act which took the entire universe of derivatives and hid them from federal regulators. The Treasury Secretary should have advised Clinton that it was garbage. Then, when he went back to the White House, he wasn't done ******* the country. He gave us one last bend over and grab your ankles.

          On Robert Rubin: Another giant asshole - he gave us Geithner and Summers. You don't send the same surgeon in after a botched surgery because the first surgeon is more interested in covering up his work.

          On Obama: Putting Rubin, Summers and Geithner in power was the tragedy of the Obama administration. Obama and Bush were both given an opportunity to be transformational - a Churchill, a Roosevelt. Obama's problem was that he sought out the biggest asshole in America - Robert Rubin.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

            Originally posted by doom&gloom View Post
            Barry Ritholz pulls no punches...
            Obama's problem was that he sought out the biggest asshole in America - Robert Rubin.
            . . . . which puts Obama in the giant asshole category as well . . . .

            I'm writing in Ron Paul.
            raja
            Boycott Big Banks • Vote Out Incumbents

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

              Originally posted by raja View Post
              . . . . which puts Obama in the giant asshole category as well . . . .

              I'm writing in Ron Paul.
              +1
              on both.

              Originally posted by Barry Ritholz
              pulls no punches...

              http://www.capitalismwithoutfailure....an-miller.html

              On Larry Summers: We now find out that the single biggest asshole in America is Larry Summers, who browbeat Obama into bailing out Citibank. Larry Summers oversaw the repeal of Glass Steagall as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Whitehouse, and oversaw the Commodities Futures Modernization Act which took the entire universe of derivatives and hid them from federal regulators. The Treasury Secretary should have advised Clinton that it was garbage. Then, when he went back to the White House, he wasn't done ******* the country. He gave us one last bend over and grab your ankles.

              On Robert Rubin: Another giant asshole - he gave us Geithner and Summers. You don't send the same surgeon in after a botched surgery because the first surgeon is more interested in covering up his work.

              On Obama: Putting Rubin, Summers and Geithner in power was the tragedy of the Obama administration. Obama and Bush were both given an opportunity to be transformational - a Churchill, a Roosevelt. Obama's problem was that he sought out the biggest asshole in America - Robert Rubin.
              gotta luv the nuance and understatement here - and there i was thinkin (oddlots) that barry was one of dem...

              any questions on my prev observations that the bastions of power and finance that occupy lower manhattan also happen to vote (and bankroll) dems?

              i mean its kinda simple - even fer a kinda rightwing redneck like me - YA DONT SEE A LOT OF LIBERAL DEMS IN THE EXEC SUITES OF THE BIG OIL CO'S in texas - well, DO YA?

              so its my position that if it was a bunch of republican oil co execs that just ran the economy into the deepest ditch since the 1930's???

              WE WOULD SEE PROSECUTIONS LEFT AND RIGHT COMING OUT OF THE DEPT OF 'justice'

              ahem...

              making the occupant of THAT office one of the top assholes, as well.

              the 'truth' ??
              YOU (libs) CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!

              Last edited by lektrode; May 05, 2012, 06:49 PM.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                Originally posted by raja View Post
                . . . . which puts Obama in the giant asshole category as well . . . .

                I'm writing in Ron Paul.
                The next time some Republican ( some Repuke ) proclaims that they are going to write-in Ron Paul on a ballot, say this:

                " Public works and public spending gave us THE St. LAWRENCE SEAWAY opened in 1959; THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM built during the Eisenhower Administration; THE EMPIRE STATE BLDG built in the Depression; the discovery of ATOMIC ENERGY at the Univ. of Chicago in 1940; THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (T.V.A.) with all of its hydro-electric dams built during the Depression; the magnificent SAN FRANCISCO - OAKLAND BAY BRIDGE (opened in 1936) and the magnificent GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE (opened in 1936); the HOOVER DAM and Lake Mead, and the GLEN COULEE DAM, the SHASTA DAM, all three built during the Depression; the GLEN CANYON DAM and Lake Powell, the later just recently opened; MEDICARE FOR THE ELDERLY in America, begun in 1966; COMPLETE MEDICARE FOR EVERYONE, regardless of age in Canada, begun in 1961 with the help of Tommy Douglas ( The Order of Canada, winner ); public education and PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, including state and provincial universities across the continent; the construction and final opening of the California Aqueduct in 1968; and THE ALLIANCE WITH CHURCHILL, De GAULLE AND STALIN that SUCCESSFULLY LIBERATED EUROPE, AND THE WORLD, FROM THE NAZIS in 1945."

                Quoting from MSNBC currently on television: "Public spending at the end of the New Deal gave the returning soldiers from WWII, the G.I. Bill, an act which helped to put me through college. It helped me to put my kids through college........ And the critics called it, 'welfare' !"

                LEAN FORWARD

                Certainly, there is no excuse for the Federal Reserve Bank reducing the purchasing power of the dollar to about 8 cents of what that dollar used to buy in the early 1950s. But most of that quiet and cruel de-valuation was due to the ridiculous spending on the Vietnam War and also the ridiculous spending on the Cold War. Both Demos and Republicans are to blame for that outrage.

                But history has proven that spending to invest in public works projects, both by and for the people, is a good investment. Those investments create jobs, improve the economy, and those investments are repaid through economic growth and taxation.

                LEAN FORWARD
                Last edited by Starving Steve; May 05, 2012, 10:48 PM. Reason: A MESSAGE TO THE REPUKES

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                  Originally posted by Starving Steve View Post
                  The next time some Republican ( some Repuke ) proclaims that they are going to write-in Ron Paul on a ballot, say this:

                  " Public works and public spending gave us THE St. LAWRENCE SEAWAY opened in 1959; THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM built during the Eisenhower Administration; THE EMPIRE STATE BLDG built in the Depression; the discovery of ATOMIC ENERGY at the Univ. of Chicago in 1940; THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (T.V.A.) with all of its hydro-electric dams built during the Depression; the magnificent SAN FRANCISCO - OAKLAND BAY BRIDGE (opened in 1936) and the magnificent GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE (opened in 1936); the HOOVER DAM and Lake Mead, and the GLEN COULEE DAM, the SHASTA DAM, all three built during the Depression; the GLEN CANYON DAM and Lake Powell, the later just recently opened; MEDICARE FOR THE ELDERLY in America, begun in 1966; COMPLETE MEDICARE FOR EVERYONE, regardless of age in Canada, begun in 1961 with the help of Tommy Douglas ( The Order of Canada, winner ); public education and PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, including state and provincial universities across the continent; the construction and final opening of the California Aqueduct in 1968; and THE ALLIANCE WITH CHURCHILL, De GAULLE AND STALIN that SUCCESSFULLY LIBERATED EUROPE, AND THE WORLD, FROM THE NAZIS in 1945."

                  Quoting from MSNBC currently on television: "Public spending at the end of the New Deal gave the returning soldiers from WWII, the G.I. Bill, an act which helped to put me through college. It helped me to put my kids through college........ And the critics called it, 'welfare' !"

                  LEAN FORWARD

                  Certainly, there is no excuse for the Federal Reserve Bank reducing the purchasing power of the dollar to about 8 cents of what that dollar used to buy in the early 1950s. But most of that quiet and cruel de-valuation was due to the ridiculous spending on the Vietnam War and also the ridiculous spending on the Cold War. Both Demos and Republicans are to blame for that outrage.

                  But history has proven that spending to invest in public works projects, both by and for the people, is a good investment. Those investments create jobs, improve the economy, and those investments are repaid through economic growth and taxation.

                  LEAN FORWARD
                  pro nukes, anti green, invest in public infrastructure... is starving steve ej in disguise??

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                    Originally posted by Starving Steve View Post
                    The next time some Republican ( some Repuke ) proclaims that they are going to write-in Ron Paul on a ballot, say this:
                    ....
                    Certainly, there is no excuse for the Federal Reserve Bank reducing the purchasing power of the dollar to about 8 cents of what that dollar used to buy in the early 1950s.
                    well mr steve, how do ya think they (we) paid for all that fine stuff that got built in the 30's?
                    (along with all the debt from ww2, which was entered by what party's majority in congress? along with creation of the fed reserve)

                    it also took some backbone to take decisive action to execute a plan that likely went against the status quo of the times - that and 25% unemployment, people starving and rioting in the streets -

                    coupled with an overabundance of exceedingly cheap (and non-unionized) labor....

                    NONE of which exists today??? (at least not available or 'qualified' to work on davis-bacon governed contracts)

                    along with the fact that not only did The US own nearly all the means of production, little to no .gov debt, NO trade deficit and a currency that was BACKED BY GOLD, with an unlimited supply of natural resources, including the WILLINGNESS TO EXTRACT THEM unimpeded by the EPA and all them fun-loving activist environmental groups that you seem... uhh... enamoured with???

                    i mean really mr steve - could you just imagine trying to do _any_ of that kind of stuff today?
                    hell, we cant even build a pipeline to bring all that cheap oil down from canada, IN SPITE of all the PRIVATE money and all the jobs it would create?


                    But most of that quiet and cruel de-valuation was due to the ridiculous spending on the Vietnam War and also the ridiculous spending on the Cold War. Both Demos and Republicans are to blame for that outrage.
                    yeah, i guess jack kennedy was more like the repukes of today - we know LBJ was, thats fer shur - and you'd have to give him some further credit for all the 'great society' stuff - too bad most of all that was destroyed by the same folks they gave it all to - but i guess in them days - before summers,rubin&co trashed the glass-steagall law, we could afford it

                    But history has proven that spending to invest in public works projects, both by and for the people, is a good investment. Those investments create jobs, improve the economy, and those investments are repaid through economic growth and taxation.
                    yeah i would have to agree with you there - too bad that after bailing out all of lower manhattan's finest limosine liberals, making sure AIG paid goldman sachs billion dollar boyz club 100cents on the dollar for all their counterparty gambling BS, along with giving what was left of thethe auto industry to the unions - and hey! dont fergit a temporary reprieve for the state/municipal unions and the coming trillion dollar giveaway to the health/drug insurance mob.

                    i'm sure NONE of that stuff would've been possible with the repukes in charge, i mean after all, they've been spending money we dont have at least as fast as the dems can propose new taxes - just look what success they've had in california (and NJ, NY, IL, MI, yada yada yada)

                    yep - the beltway just hasnt been quite the same since queen nancy had to give up her personal 757

                    LEAN FORWARD
                    and am wondren just how many metalman had tonite... ;)

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                      Originally posted by doom&gloom View Post
                      Barry Ritholz pulls no punches...

                      http://www.capitalismwithoutfailure....an-miller.html

                      On Larry Summers: We now find out that the single biggest asshole in America is Larry Summers, who browbeat Obama into bailing out Citibank. Larry Summers oversaw the repeal of Glass Steagall as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Whitehouse, and oversaw the Commodities Futures Modernization Act which took the entire universe of derivatives and hid them from federal regulators. The Treasury Secretary should have advised Clinton that it was garbage. Then, when he went back to the White House, he wasn't done ******* the country. He gave us one last bend over and grab your ankles.

                      On Robert Rubin: Another giant asshole - he gave us Geithner and Summers. You don't send the same surgeon in after a botched surgery because the first surgeon is more interested in covering up his work.

                      On Obama: Putting Rubin, Summers and Geithner in power was the tragedy of the Obama administration. Obama and Bush were both given an opportunity to be transformational - a Churchill, a Roosevelt. Obama's problem was that he sought out the biggest asshole in America - Robert Rubin.

                      Rubin may be the biggest asshole in America, but that's nothing compared to Greenspan:

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                        Barry Ritholz pulls no punches...
                        I guess what bothers me is that we have people like Ritholz, Black, Kotlikoff who are identifying problems and solutions, and they get no traction. I think the electoral system is dysfunctional. Is democracy doomed?

                        Here's Black's comment on Geithner:

                        Geithner’s assertion also requires that the regulators to have been so stupid or so insipid that they could not recognize that the CEOs were terminally stupid or so indifferent to their oaths of office that they did not object to stupid CEOs running the largest financial organizations in the United States. Since Geithner dealt personally with these CEOs, his assertion, if true, would require him to either be stupid or indifferent to his oath of office.
                        I am actually thinking the former---he couldn't do his taxes, right?
                        Last edited by Polish_Silver; May 06, 2012, 11:21 AM. Reason: Ritholz gets no Traction !

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                          Originally posted by Starving Steve View Post
                          The next time some Republican ( some Repuke ) proclaims that they are going to write-in Ron Paul on a ballot, say this:

                          " Public works and public spending gave us THE St. LAWRENCE SEAWAY opened in 1959; THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM built during the Eisenhower Administration; THE EMPIRE STATE BLDG built in the Depression; the discovery of ATOMIC ENERGY at the Univ. of Chicago in 1940; THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (T.V.A.) with all of its hydro-electric dams built during the Depression; the magnificent SAN FRANCISCO - OAKLAND BAY BRIDGE (opened in 1936) and the magnificent GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE (opened in 1936); the HOOVER DAM and Lake Mead, and the GLEN COULEE DAM, the SHASTA DAM, all three built during the Depression; the GLEN CANYON DAM and Lake Powell, the later just recently opened; MEDICARE FOR THE ELDERLY in America, begun in 1966; COMPLETE MEDICARE FOR EVERYONE, regardless of age in Canada, begun in 1961 with the help of Tommy Douglas ( The Order of Canada, winner ); public education and PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, including state and provincial universities across the continent; the construction and final opening of the California Aqueduct in 1968; and THE ALLIANCE WITH CHURCHILL, De GAULLE AND STALIN that SUCCESSFULLY LIBERATED EUROPE, AND THE WORLD, FROM THE NAZIS in 1945."

                          Quoting from MSNBC currently on television: "Public spending at the end of the New Deal gave the returning soldiers from WWII, the G.I. Bill, an act which helped to put me through college. It helped me to put my kids through college........ And the critics called it, 'welfare' !"

                          LEAN FORWARD

                          Certainly, there is no excuse for the Federal Reserve Bank reducing the purchasing power of the dollar to about 8 cents of what that dollar used to buy in the early 1950s. But most of that quiet and cruel de-valuation was due to the ridiculous spending on the Vietnam War and also the ridiculous spending on the Cold War. Both Demos and Republicans are to blame for that outrage.

                          But history has proven that spending to invest in public works projects, both by and for the people, is a good investment. Those investments create jobs, improve the economy, and those investments are repaid through economic growth and taxation.

                          LEAN FORWARD
                          Back then we were the world's biggest creditor. Now we're the world's biggest debtor.

                          Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                            I guess what bothers me is that we have people like Ritholz, Black, Kotlikoff who are identifying problems and solutions, and they get no traction. I think the electoral system is dysfunctional. Is democracy doomed?
                            They get no traction because of people like Starving Steve on the left, and his ilk on the right.

                            American Politics is like British Soccer -- fans choose teams for life, and it matters not what they do.

                            You see this in CONgressional polling, where people rate CONgress continually lower each year, but then say their rep is good. It is mind numbing.

                            We have now had NO, ZERO, NADA budget for THREE YEARS. WTF?! This is what we ELECT them to do. This is their primary job, or at least what they are paid to do.


                            A note to Starving Steve and his ilk on the right. All the 'good stuff' was done in the past when the vote of the people actually mattered. Now it is just the dollars from K Street that matter. To continue to blindly believe in some ideology, when the facts support otherwise, is just plain foolish. Witness:

                            The 'supposed' liberal Clinton gave us job killing NAFTA, and market killing CFMA & repeal of Glass-Steagall.
                            The 'supposed' conservative GW Bush gave us Medicare part D, zero fiscal responsibility and The Patriot Act (to strip away our Constitutional rights)
                            The 'supposed' liberal Obama re-upped the Patriot Act, made it worse, and gave us the NDAA and the belief any American can be killed anywhere in the world anytime he says so.

                            Does anyone see anything strange in thos positions?

                            I could go on, but really, the facts speak for themselves.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

                              I am certainly not enamoured with the environmentalists, none of them, and not their EPA either. As repulsive as the religious-right is in America, the environmental bunch are even worse--- if that were possible, and it is.

                              Speaking about the repulsive religious-right in America--- that bunch that has made abortion their banner issue--- infants born live until their first-birthday die of neglect and poverty in Mississippi at the rate of 9 per thousand live births [ 0.009 live births ]. This rate is no lower than the rate of infant mortality in Sri Lanka. Many third-world nations have a lower rate of infant mortality than Mississippi..... But what is odd is that Mississippi is a stronghold of the religious-right; i.e, a stronghold of those in the rightwing in America who claim to be pro-life, yet Mississippi has a mortality rate of infants that rivals those rates in undeveloped nations.

                              Let me make this very clear so that every slow learner here might understand what I have written: Mississippi, a state in the southern United States that votes Republican in every federal election and a state that is governed by the anti-abortion and so-called pro-life bunch, has not only the highest rate of infant mortality in America, but Mississippi has a rate so high that it is the same as the rate of infant mortality in the undeveloped nation of Sri Lanka, 9 per 1000 infants between their live birth and their first birthday..... Mississippi has about 360 infant deaths each year from neglect and poverty--- that would be 0.009 per their 40,000 live births per year in that state. (0.009 x 40,000 live births per year = 360 infant deaths each year ).

                              Maybe some school kids might tack a copy of this post onto the door of some of the churches ( especially the churches in Mississippi that claim to be pro-life ) .

                              But as repulsive. arrogant and hypocritical as the religious-right is in America, the environmentalists and their EPA are even worse--- if that were possible, and sad to say, it is.
                              Last edited by Starving Steve; May 06, 2012, 02:58 PM.

                              Comment

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