The Income Problem

Quote of the day

"Why did government spending rise so much under Reagan, with his small-government rhetoric, while shrinking under the president so many Republicans insist is a secret socialist?" --Paul Krugman, economist, writer, author, columnist for The New York Times. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/opinion/krugman-states-of-depression.html?smid=FB-nytimes&WT.mc_id=OP-E-FB-SM-LIN-SOD-030512-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

The situation in the EU

I came across what I thought is a very good, if simple, description of the European financial system and its problems right now: "Underfunded banks buys underfunded government bonds and underfunded governments guarantees underfunded banks.? It's one of those things that, again, is simple and that seems true but you certainly hope is not. Links: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/02/capital-flight-from-italy-greece.html; http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-myths-about-the-european-quagmire-2012-02-27?link=MW_story_popular; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/opinion/krugman-what-ails-europe.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Quote of the day (and a great development from this Republican presidential campaign)

At least, now, with this Republican presidential campaign, we are asking good, piercing, penetrating, evaluative questions about our nation and its policies: "As Mitt Romney dances around calls for him to release his tax returns, a question about U.S. tax policy comes up: Why do the rich bear a startlingly light tax burden? ...At a time when all the self-proclaimed serious people are telling us that the poor and the middle class must suffer in the name of fiscal probity, such low taxes on the very rich are indefensible." --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, writer and columnist for The New York Times Link to original column: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/opinion/krugman-taxes-at-the-top.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share

Quote of the day

“I have a structural hypothesis here. You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.” --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning Economist, writer and columnist for The New York Times, speaking to ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday on "This Week" program.

The nation's--and world's?--"save": clean, renewable, affordable solar energy

"And now for something completely different: the success story you haven’t heard about. These days, mention solar power and you’ll probably hear cries of 'Solyndra!' Republicans have tried to make the failed solar panel company both a symbol of government waste — although claims of a major scandal are nonsense — and a stick with which to beat renewable energy. But Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year. This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal. And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it’s likely that we would already have passed that tipping point. But will our political system delay the energy transformation now within reach? Let’s face it: a large part of our political class, including essentially the entire G.O.P., is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers’ money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar. So what you need to know is that nothing you hear from these people is true. Fracking is not a dream come true; solar is now cost-effective. Here comes the sun, if we’re willing to let it in." --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, writer and columnist, The New York Times Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/krugman-here-comes-solar-energy.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/krugman-here-comes-solar-energy.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share

Them vs. us

"We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only." --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, writer, columnist for The New York Times, etc. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html?_r=1

Quote of the day

"Why has the response to rising inequality been a drive to reduce taxes on the rich?" --Paul Krugman, Economist, Columnist, Writer, The New York Times

Quote of the day--on our national spending

"The truth is that as far as straight economics, America's longer run fiscal problems shouldn't be all that hard to fix. An aging population and rising health care costs will, under current policies, push spending up faster than tax receipts. But the US has far higher health care costs than any other advanced country and very low taxes by international standards. If we could move even part way toward international norms on both these fronts, our budget problems would be solved." --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, writer and columnist for The New York Times.

Quote of the day--still on the debt ceiling mess

"What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy?" --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, writer and columnist for The New York Times. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=2

Quote of the day--on the debt deal

"A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong. For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status." --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, writer and columnist for The New York Times. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=2

We have got to stop ignoring the economists

Word from Washington on the budget negotiations today is that the desperate, pathetic Republicans have thrown yet another new wrinkle into the mix. Now they say they want a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget for the country. Yikes. If any of them would care to take a moment to poll a bunch of economists, virtually the entire consensus of them would tell the Republican leaders that for a nation, that is a patently bad idea. I'm not supporting runaway spending by any means, not at all and I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't cut spending or shrink government. (Really want to shrink government? Kill the Homeland Security Agency and cut defense spending by half. We need both). But a balanced budget for nations is a recipe for disaster as, again, ANY ECONOMIST WOULD TELL YOU. You want to kill a nation's economy? Require balanced budgets. Oh, and for evidence? Right before every large economic downturn of the last century ot two, we've had balanced budgets. Do we really want that? Links: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-adds-constitutional-amendment-budget-fight-190757159.html; http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/hanging-tough-with-keynes/; http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/11/17/nyts-krugman-think-economic-momentum-not-balanced-budgets/

On our sorry, partisan, for-the-rich political system right now

From Paul Krugman in The Kansas City Star yesterday:

"Sorry to be cynical, but right now 'bipartisan' is usually code for assembling conservative Democrats and ultra-conservative Republicans--all of them with ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves--and having them proclaiming that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution."

Sadly, Tea Party members, most of whom are likely truly middle-class or lower, support this absurd, selfish, destructive nonsense.

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Quote of the day--can't be said enough

"Just to be clear, progressives would be foolish to sit out this election: Mr. Obama may not be the politician of their dreams, but his enemies are definitely the stuff of their nightmares." --Paul Krugman, economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, op-ed columnist for The New York Times,Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics. Link to original post: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30krugman.html

Quote of the day--If Republicans regain Congress this Fall

From Paul Krugman at The New York Times today: It’s hard to overstate how destructive the economic ideas offered earlier this week by John Boehner, the House minority leader, would be if put into practice. Basically, he proposes two things: large tax cuts for the wealthy that would increase the budget deficit while doing little to support the economy, and sharp spending cuts that would depress the economy while doing little to improve budget prospects. Fewer jobs and bigger deficits — the perfect combination. More broadly, if Republicans regain power, they will surely do what they did during the Bush years: they won’t seriously try to address the economy’s troubles; they’ll just use those troubles as an excuse to push the usual agenda, including Social Security privatization. They’ll also surely try to repeal health reform, which would be another twofer, reducing economic security even as it increases long-term deficits. Return the "Party of No" Republicans back to power in either the House or Senate? And why? Because they don't have a plan for the economy--which they don't--and because going backward is a good idea? Oh, heck no. Link to original post: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/opinion/10krugman.html