Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

[metalman]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

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??

[Starving Steve]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

. . . . 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

[lektrode]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

. . . . which puts Obama in the giant asshole category as well . . . .

I'm writing in Ron Paul.

+1
on both.

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!

[raja]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

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.

[doom&gloom]

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.

[Raz]

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.

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

[doom&gloom]

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.

[raja]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

The nerve of these two....

What do you mean?

[Slimprofits]

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.