Krugman has been right so many times in the past.
And he is right about this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/05/krugman-obama-relying-too_n_155250.html
05 January 2009
03 January 2009
Bush = Enemy Combatant ??
And while we are talking about Justice... and the American Justice System... my friends and legal scholars, please tell me, is there anything at all to prevent President Obama from declaring Dubya an "unlawfull enemy combatant" and wisking him off to a secret prison in Tajikistan on Jan 21st??? Then they could torture confessions out of him, including the hearsay evidence necessary to convict Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice in the "Commisions" that Dubya himself created. And all of this could take place in secret with no access to lawyers or the press or to International Red Cross. These high value detainees could be held in sensory deprivation until they mentally resembled furniture, and at the same time the Obama administration could constantly claim that these terrorists are far to dangerous ever to be released. All that could happen, couldn't it?
02 January 2009
Challenge
Republican Congressman Matt Salmon, who is backing the proposal to put President Reagan on Mount Rushmore, says Mr Reagan should be added because he gave Americans faith in the future.
''He's the president that ended the Cold War. You think about 40 years of a major threat, not only to our country but to the world at large, being ended by one man - that's quite an achievement.''
.... ONE man ended the cold war???? and it was Ronnie???? That is lunacy. If you think there is one bit of truth in the myth that Reagan "won the Cold War", then I challenge you to a debate right here right now. Congressman Salmon? Anyone? Will you dispute my premise that Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of the Soviet Union? click "add comment" below and the discussion begins.
Free markets allow bankruptcy
There is one fundamental misconception about the nature of self-correcting systems.
Nature is a self-correcting system. When there is a lot of rain on the savanna more grass grows. More grass means more food for more zebras. The zebra population increases providing more food for lions. The lion population increases and equilibrium returns. As rainfall varies from year to year it is totally normal for one extreme drought to come along every 10 or fifteen years. In these conditions, grass grows very little. Underfed zebras are weak and get killed at an alarming rate by the lions. A 90 percent loss in the zebra population is entirely possible. The self-correcting system then causes a good 90 percent loss in the lion population.
Free markets work in exactly the same way. There are boom and bust cycles, just like heavy rains and droughts in nature. Self-correction often means rampant bankruptcy. Sometimes it means the extinction of certain poorly adapted species. The financial crisis of 2008 in no way proves that markets do not correct themselves. They do. If world governments let all of the banks collapse, a new financial system would arise eventually, undoubtedly spearheaded by the few who made the best economic decisions in the years leading up to the crisis [these are the 10 percent of the best adapted zebras and lions]…
…but in our society, we are not willing to let 90 percent die off. We demand better than nature. We demand more than the self-correction mechanism. We want a system in which 90 percent of our citizens don’t have to go bankrupt, lose their homes, beg for money on the street, or prostitute themselves for pennies. We demand a system where we don’t lose every penny that we put in the bank just because the bank managers take on too much risk.
We like self-correcting systems in nature [in fact anytime that we are not the victims]. It is horribly painful for the zebra who is pinned down having his guts eaten by a lion. If zebras ran the planet they would undoubtedly try to tweak the system to reduce this phenomena to a minimum. Just as humans do whatever they can to prevent bank failures. Unresolved economic crisis leads directly to starvation. So remember that just a few short months ago, proud Republicans were still screaming how even more deregulation is needed. The Reagan Revolution has brought us a long way for sure. Throw a shoe at Dubya.
Nature is a self-correcting system. When there is a lot of rain on the savanna more grass grows. More grass means more food for more zebras. The zebra population increases providing more food for lions. The lion population increases and equilibrium returns. As rainfall varies from year to year it is totally normal for one extreme drought to come along every 10 or fifteen years. In these conditions, grass grows very little. Underfed zebras are weak and get killed at an alarming rate by the lions. A 90 percent loss in the zebra population is entirely possible. The self-correcting system then causes a good 90 percent loss in the lion population.
Free markets work in exactly the same way. There are boom and bust cycles, just like heavy rains and droughts in nature. Self-correction often means rampant bankruptcy. Sometimes it means the extinction of certain poorly adapted species. The financial crisis of 2008 in no way proves that markets do not correct themselves. They do. If world governments let all of the banks collapse, a new financial system would arise eventually, undoubtedly spearheaded by the few who made the best economic decisions in the years leading up to the crisis [these are the 10 percent of the best adapted zebras and lions]…
…but in our society, we are not willing to let 90 percent die off. We demand better than nature. We demand more than the self-correction mechanism. We want a system in which 90 percent of our citizens don’t have to go bankrupt, lose their homes, beg for money on the street, or prostitute themselves for pennies. We demand a system where we don’t lose every penny that we put in the bank just because the bank managers take on too much risk.
We like self-correcting systems in nature [in fact anytime that we are not the victims]. It is horribly painful for the zebra who is pinned down having his guts eaten by a lion. If zebras ran the planet they would undoubtedly try to tweak the system to reduce this phenomena to a minimum. Just as humans do whatever they can to prevent bank failures. Unresolved economic crisis leads directly to starvation. So remember that just a few short months ago, proud Republicans were still screaming how even more deregulation is needed. The Reagan Revolution has brought us a long way for sure. Throw a shoe at Dubya.
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