Paul Krugman's column on The New York Times.

[jueco2005]

Quote from Mav88:

The problem with South America's brain is that he is trying to advance his political agenda by posing as an 'objective' economist. When contradictions arise, he simply ignores them.

Military spending during Bush ~3.8 Trillion
Social welfare spending ~ 9 trillion
Housing and Credit Bubbles>> cost of military

yet he blames the military for america's money woes, assinine to anybody with a functioning brain. The constitution binds to the goverenment to spend on defense, it says nothing about social welfare spending. SA thinks though that medical care is a right.
It's quite obvious that he is a left wing america hater, although he thinks he is hiding it because in his own mind he is being rational.

I guess you made a very good point. HOWEVER,

The constitution does not say we should have bases all over the world. In essence a military empire.

 

[Mav88]

Can't argue there, I have no idea why we have shoulder the burden for defending Japan, South Korea, Europe and the like.

It's more like military welfare imo, look how much these places have prospered under our protection. Time for them to do it themselves, let China secure the persian gulf -but we still get the benefits of the oil.

 

[jueco2005]

Quote from Mav88:

Can't argue there, I have no idea why we have shoulder the burden for defending Japan, South Korea, Europe and the like.

It's more like military welfare imo, look how much these places have prospered under our protection. Time for them to do it themselves, let China secure the persian gulf -but we still get the benefits of the oil.

What???

Weren't they prosperous before???

Japan was an empire, Korea was about to merge with Japan. A cultural genocide but hey.........

Europe, had the US not invervine in WW1, would be German all of it. A united states of europe by 1918.

 

[Spaceman3]

Quote from dhpar:



well, that is new to me - at least since 1968...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economics

Quoting from the Wikipedia link you posted:

"The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not a Nobel Prize."

 

[dhpar]

Quote from Spaceman3:

Quoting from the Wikipedia link you posted:

"The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not a Nobel Prize."

omg.

ok, not the original nobel prize set up from nobel's funds.
but it is an equivalent of that - awarded also in stockholm and on the same day (called usually a nobel prize...). it is awarded "in accordance with the rules governing the award of the Nobel Prizes instituted through Alfred Nobel's will"...

not sure it makes any sense to argue about verbatim here - the point is he got the award which he did not deserve imo.

 

[Mav88]

What???

Weren't they prosperous before???

Japan was an empire, Korea was about to merge with Japan. A cultural genocide but hey.........

Europe, had the US not invervine in WW1, would be German all of it. A united states of europe by 1918.

The point is that WWII happened, and nations under Soviet influence were not prosperous. Most certainly both Germany and Japan would not have done as well without protection and Marshall plan type projects. South Korea especially is a case of tremedously benefiting, dittos for Kuwait.

I think that we can longer afford to be a cop for the wealthy.

 

[Landis82]

Quote from Mav88:

[I think that we can longer afford to be a cop for the wealthy.

Even so, defense spending as a percentage of total GDP is only at 4.7% for 2009. In fact, it was only at 3.9% in 2005.

I believe that the 45-year average is 5.5%

 

[leonel]

Great post!

Quote from Cutten:

You have to remember that being a political leader is arguably the hardest job in any country. First, it is incredibly hard to know what the right policies are, since experts almost always disagree. Second, even if you know the perfect policies, it is very hard to get elected to the top job. Third, even if you do that, it is hard to implement these policies due to other people having vested interests, or being stupid and thinking your policies aren't good. Fourth, even if you do all that, you can lose office due to random chance, scandal, or just people not liking you personally.

Before Reagan and Thatcher took power, the US and UK were in a total fucking mess due to terrible central bank policy and excessive socialism in the 70s, and there was a serious threat of the rest of mainland Europe being invaded and conquered by the USSR, the west had little military credibility after Vietnam, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iranian hostage crisis,. There was also serious risk of WWIII, in fact we came pretty close to it one time. Conventional wisdom then was big government, appeasement, and that communism was a viable alternative to capitalism or social democracy. Half the world was allied with the USSR or looking to it as a political model. Within 10 years almost all of this had done a 180 degree flip. The cold war ended, tax and inflation came to reasonable levels, unemployment dropped significantly, economic stability improved significantly, and communism died in almost all countries except N Korea and Cuba. Half a billion people went from slaves to free citizens of relatively free and peaceful societies. Reagan's decision to ramp up the Cold War and attempt to roll back the state - both daring minority positions going strongly against conventional wisdom - played a considerable role in achieving a lot of that.

To say that Reagan "obviously made mistakes" is trivial, since perfection in politics is literally impossible, much more so than in trading or any other field. However, I'd be interested when comparing the USA in 1980 to 1989, did it become a better or worse place? What about the world in general? What other potential presidential candidates at the time would have been able to contribute to the improvements listed above? How many would have done nothing or made things worse?

It is easy to criticize in hindsight, but that makes about as much sense as saying what the ideal trades for 2008 were - it is totally useless since you can't make politics years after the fact any more than you can trade using last year's prices.

 

[Cutten]

Quote from dhpar:

omg.

ok, not the original nobel prize set up from nobel's funds.
but it is an equivalent of that - awarded also in stockholm and on the same day (called usually a nobel prize...). it is awarded "in accordance with the rules governing the award of the Nobel Prizes instituted through Alfred Nobel's will"...

not sure it makes any sense to argue about verbatim here - the point is he got the award which he did not deserve imo.

It's called the Nobel prize because Nobel paid for it and said what he wanted it awarded for. He did not say to have an economics prize, therefore an economics prize made up 70+ years later is not a Nobel prize.

The economics prize is a Swedish bank prize, not a Nobel.

 

[Debaser82]

Marc Faber: "Professor Krugman, whose recent criticism of the Austrian School of Economics shows that he really has no clue about economics – an impression I had already following a discussion with him in the late 1990s when he claimed the NASDAQ would never decline4


(Paul Krugman: “….‘Austrian theory’ of the business cycle—a theory that I regard as being about as worthy of serious study as the phlogiston theory of fire”)