One advantage of cutting the capital gains tax is that it wouldn’t lose any govt revenue, since there are no capital gains. /s

Thanks, Jane. I am delighted that Krugman won the Nobel. He is consistent and reliable. The Republicans have just about cleaned out the Treasury so why should they worry.

yah saw that

i used to send Krugman E-Candy Gramms….for standing up to the Boooshies
they guy is SO DAMN BRAVE

yo Huckleberry! how’s that working out for ya ?!?!?

Conversely, Obama’s pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency,

WaPo

OH how right you are…..will they pay me back for my capital losses?bailout??
some…buddy…bail me out…..wine wine

yup sent Candy to…Boxer,Randy Rhodes,Franken,Mike Malloy,oh a bunch of other BRAVEHEARTS

“The man accused of shooting and killing two people in a Knoxville church Sunday wrote that he hated liberals and was bitter he couldn’t find a job, police said Monday.

Authorities added he may also have been angry about possibly losing his food stamps.“

http://www.usatoday.com/news/n…..htm?csp=34

Great stats, Jane.

I always wonder why “moral hazard” gets dragged out every time something benefits the working class, but never when the beneficiaries are the well off or corporations.

Sorry Authorities added he may also have been angry about possibly losing his food stamps.

Davis (R-VA) at National Press Club now being shown on cspan, is making excuses about why Rs are doing so poorly in congressional races. Sez the public blames D congress for everything. Bwahahahaha.

note to selise if you are about:

oh goodness, how could I have forgotten Mr Stiglitz ???

btw – that Chris Floyd piece is beyond fabulous ! not a wasted word in it – and so easy for anyone to follow . I am so using it for LTE’s – thanks !

Sez Rs will come close to parity in last 2 weeks.

another brave guy,if he were here in MERIKA…id send him some candy too

October surpise…Osama s head in a pottery barn basket?

I about fell off my chair yestiddy when Lindsey Graham started talking about “the tenor of the campaign last week” and then immediately blamed Obama for playing “the race card.”

Yep, he’s from Reality.

more Java

sad little man/girl

One advantage of cutting the capital gains tax is that it wouldn’t lose any govt revenue, since there are no capital gains. /s

That’s was my thought as well. It’s just the same old voodoo hoodoo from the Republicans. They have nothing so they repeat them same tired slogans over and over.

FDL

Can you take Ian’s post, turn it into a petition, and have the members of FDL sign it and send it our members of congress?

Some one should keep track of how many different economic plans McCain has advanced. Must be closing in on 10 by now.

No, they can talk about “the race card.” It’s new.

“Mr. Bush has degraded our government and undermined the rule of law,” Krugman wrote in a column on May 18, 2007. “He has led us into strategic disaster and moral squalor.”

Sez Rs will come close to parity in last 2 weeks.

Must be smoking some good stuff.

Table title: “Bang for the Buck” instead of “Bank for the Buck”?

Thanks Jane.

digg

Food Stamps…the Republicans ‘BOOGY MAN!. I believe the majority of Amerikans want infrastructure and commodity food system and Health Care.

Going after Kanjorski, Landrieu. Listing a few others that I’m not familiar with.

Yes their hostility to it is moral, not reality-based. They would have to backpeddle on decades of bigotry and race baiting about “welfare queens” and the greedy sub-prime mortgage crowd to face the practicalities of the situation.

Another reason they are unfit to lead.

Re Krugman, the Nobel prizes in peace, literature, and economics are often used by the selection committees to make a political statement. That they picked Krugman citing some fairly mundane work he did two decades ago is an indication of this. The point is that they chose a well known, well respected, even well liked economist, who is very much not Chicago School.

That said, Krugman has been noticeably behind the curve in buying into the Paulson characterization of the current meltdown as being primarily a liquidity crisis and in his view that spikes in oil prices resulted from mainly supply-demand issues and not excessive speculation.

Davis plays the ACORN card.

i truly believe they want the power …..to steal,….it opens the coffers to them…LEAD, they have no concept,because the un powerfull are of no use to them…we are expendable

i hear Scarbs and Cramer were poo poing him for this great achievement ,i guess MEEKMIKKA just sat there pouring coffee

Davis gets asked about voter suppression. Audience laughs. He denies it, for the record.

I think their deck is down to nothing but the jokers now and they are just flailing about. Truly an amazing campaign.

I’ll bet they loved it when Scholes, founding partner of Long Term Capital Management, got the prize. No irony intended. /s

“welfare queens”

We could fund all the welfare queens in the universe for life out of one tenth of one percent of what the welfare kings of Wall Street are costing us.

Kanjorski, maybe. But Landrieu was way ahead last I saw.

Thanks.

OK folks, got to clean up some dead trees that my yard guy cut dow for firewood. BBL.

Bullseye.

i try to avoid watching commercials but saw one by accident on sunday (yes only one). it was for obama and on how he was going to cut taxes. is that a common theme in the commercials of either/both candidates this year?

and Al Gore

our LIBERAL media makes a mockery out of everything sacred and dear

Yes, I plan to reference that piece myself on my own blog this evening.

silly hippy,

“My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them !”

seriously, what are those kidz at the Onion doing for work these days ?

i hear Scarbs and Cramer were poo poing him for this great achievement ,i guess MEEKMIKKA just sat there pouring coffee

He certainly deserves it more than any conservative economist around but it is hard not to see this as the Nobel Committee saying a big Fuck you to the whole body of Chicago School, neoliberal, Washington Consensus, Milton Friedmanesque economics.

Krugman was sounding alarms about the housing bubble in 2004 and earlier (along with Calculated Risk, Roubini, and other blogs). Everyone thought he was being shrill. Oh well.

Unfortunately, he was right…and his columns and writings from the early years in this century will document it. Cramer, Joe and the CNBC a-holes can ignore it if they wish, but they (and we) are living the nightmare now.

Cindy LOu ,put her Jimmy Choos in her mouth again

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..34068.html

You really haven’t been watching, have you? Yeah, everyone’s a tax cutter at election time.

NOBEL= Sweden….= THE SMART BAILOUT!

The Great Unraveling…..kinda unraveled

I wonder if their is enough room on the island of St. Helena for all of the supply side pols.
Their political exile is really necessary. The damage they have done to our nation in a generation is almost beyond comprehension.

oooh me too. caught two of the taxy goodness ones on the History Channel while watching Black Blizzards

ok ….nasty chores await…….. kitty litter

Everything the Rethugs and Blue Dogs say can be safely ignored until after the election, at which point it can all be safely ignored while a new, bigger Dem caucus in both Houses sideline the Blue Dogs, ignore absolutely the GOP, and actually do what we are putting them in office to do: serve US, not the rich.

Someone is bound to write a book about the funny things that have happened in the last year. It’s sad in many ways but hilarious in most. The Onion may have to fold it this keeps up.

NOBEL= Sweden….= THE SMART BAILOUT!

Paulson = US = The unsmart bailout

and in his view that spikes in oil prices resulted from mainly supply-demand issues and not excessive speculation.

Great point.

I’m with Krugman 90% of the time, but not on this issue.

I find it disappointing that someone like him can’t acknowledge what in hindsight is now obvious; China and India’s economies haven’t slowed 45% in two months, while oil’s come down in price 45% in that time.

Reggie Jackson reportedly once said “When you have you foot on your opponents neck, press harder.”

Similarly, Congress shouldn’t drop the ball on wringing the excessive speculation out of financial markets just because oil is back below $90; in fact they should point to current events as the reason to act quickly to keep it from spiraling out of control again.

iirc, scholes got the prize in ‘97 and ltcm went bust in ‘98.

only know this because he was a signatory on a ‘94 statement by the financial economists roundtable on derivative markets and financial risks. here’s a bit for laughs:

While one cannot rule out the possibility of a systemic crisis in almost any financial market, the Financial Economists Roundtable believes that the use of OTC derivatives does not justify the current fear that they might cause a systemic meltdown. Moreover, members of the Roundtable worry that precipitous and unnecessary government intervention directed at preventing such a possibility may create rigidities that impede the responsiveness of markets in times of stress.

Yes, but a Nobel prize is nuthin compared to a Peabody, which Krugman arch nemesis Bill O’Loofah kinda sorta won somewhat many years ago, when he read teleprompters for an entertainment show, just as he does now.

Oh, and ya think Krugman ever banged “hot Italian women” while his wife was home pregnant? Huh? Well, O’Falafel has dun that too. So there, you know-it-all LIBRULS!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/a…..kris9.html

Let’s see, more money for the rich, or a lil for the middle. Hummm…… rough decisions these days.

He certainly deserves it more than any conservative economist around but it is hard not to see this as the Nobel Committee saying a big Fuck you to the whole body of Chicago School, neoliberal, Washington Consensus, Milton Friedmanesque economics.

Which serves as a nice bookend to the Big F U they gave to the neocons when they gave the Nobel to Gore.

except iirc, krugman’s advice on trade policy has been pretty much in line with the consensus. maybe i have that wrong though? otherwise i agree and am enjoying this “fuck you” almost as much as when Mohamed ElBaradei (iaea) got the peace prize.

I watched Black Blizzards too last night — actually I fell asleep before the end, but it was truly horrifying.

Somewhat off topic League to lay off about 80 amid economic slowdown, Stern says

…
“There is a season-ticket renewal rate decline, and new sales are also being hit,” he said. “My guess is when [the regular season] kicks off, we will be down modestly in season ticket sales.”

While one cannot rule out the possibility of a systemic crisis in almost any financial market, the Financial Economists Roundtable believes that the use of OTC derivatives does not justify the current fear that they might cause a systemic meltdown. Moreover, members of the Roundtable worry that precipitous and unnecessary government intervention directed at preventing such a possibility may create rigidities that impede the responsiveness of markets in times of stress.

That shit should be Exhibit A during the upcoming Waxman hearings on how we got into this mess.

It’s always “The Smartest Guys In The Room” that get us into these horrible financial situations.

See, they know more than us, and ‘this time is different’, ‘those old rules don’t apply anymore’, etc. etc.

Until they’re wrong, and all (financial) hell breaks loose.

While one cannot rule out the possibility of a systemic crisis in almost any financial market, the Financial Economists Roundtable believes that the use of OTC derivatives does not justify the current fear that they might cause a systemic meltdown. Moreover, members of the Roundtable worry that precipitous and unnecessary government intervention directed at preventing such a possibility may create rigidities that impede the responsiveness of markets in times of stress.

That is a great quote. It’s like the captain of the Titanic talking about ice.

Disagreed with Krugman passionately regarding President Paulson’s bailout gift to Goldman Sachs and other big-time financial investors (see: Congress).
But on the flip-side he is one of the top mainstream economists in America and this will no doubt cause the fascists to whine exhaustively.

Oh look, Jules Crittenden has an opinion:

“I wouldn’t want to suggest Krugman excuses terrorism or hates America. It is likely, however, that his extensive Bush-bashing, Saddam-dismissing, GWOT-mocking absurdism was a heavy thumb on the Nobel scale. Curious that an economist whose work on patterns and locations is Nobel-worthy couldn’t do the math to figure out that a sociopathic mass-murdering megalomaniac with a pattern of supporting terrorism, seeking WMD and invading neighbors, located on some of the most strategically important real estate on Earth, with whom much of Europe was eager to trade again, is someone who could no longer be tolerated.”

Everyone thought he was being shrill.

that’s right! i’d forgotten.

long before there was today’s prize, there was the order of the shrill (backstory here). where people who’d been driven over the edge by bushco were inducted with these now famous lines of brad delong who would repeat “the forbidden verses which consecrates an aspirant into the Occult and Hermetic Order of the Shrill”:

By the power vested in me by Paul R. Krugman, and through the invocation of the ideas of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Lord Acton, John Stuart Mill, and all the other friends of liberty, I hereby enlist and welcome Brother (or Sister) ________ to The Ranks of the Shrill.

This whole meltdown, imho, gives new momentum towards liberal/progressive efforts to remove all corporate donations from the political process, local, state, and federal.

YEAH for Krugman!!

The capital gains tax reductions that Bush pushed through have caused the US govt. to eat it’s seed corn..Trillions of dollars in future revenue have been eaten up as people sold now to take advantage of the lower rate rather than wait for the rate to go back up…..this has been invisible but insidious. Between the Bush rate decrease and the stock market crash and the housing debacle- there are less paper gains waiting to be taxed than at any time in recent memory.

The capital gains taxes are pretty easy to avoid anyway- just don’t sell the assetts! You only have to pay when you sell and those with plenty of money have no NEED to sell usually… It’s actually something that stabilizes the stock market and other markets—if you do away with capital gains taxes, then the buying and selling cycles will become more severe and frequent I suspect.

Citizen selise:

“…maybe I have that wrong though.”

Yes you do…he’s always been opposed to what the Congress and the fascists did and he has been advocating and educating for some thing far beyond even the New Deal. No selise, Krugman has only “been in line with the consensus” in believing that this exposes the bankruptcy of fascist economic.

o/t

Holy Three Pointer Batman !

Coach Dean Smith endorses Barack Obama

Linnea and I respect all that Senator McCain has done for our country. However, we feel strongly that it is Barack Obama who offers the real leadership our nation needs to tap its potential as a land of opportunity — even as we face difficult times at home and abroad. Senator Obama is a patriotic American, a committed Christian, a good family man, and a man who shares the bedrock values that most North Carolinians have in common: fairness, hard work, respect for others, and personal responsibility.

Nothing But Net !

“…economic)s).”

oops—The Palin campaign didn’t need THAT endorsement!

That is typical winger incoherence from Crittenden. Krugman was right, therefore he was wrong. If he is wrong, he is unworthy.

When in doubt on these economic issues, I tend to listen to Krugman.

in case i unclear, i meant the trade consensus during the clinton years (washington consensus, neoliberal economics, imf/wto polices). was he against that? i thought not? would love a link or two if i’m wrong. thanks.

Holy S***!!! Obama has just claimed NC! Being an NC State grad, it really hurts to see Dean Smith making sense.

glad you liked it. imo one of his best.

Jane- Great shot across the bow! I hope that Obama is fully up on the economics going into the debate. IMO Lindsey should have kept his mouth shut. This is another case where the McCain campaign has blown it. Obama does even need to “steal the signals” of the McCain team! The punter has bragged about the “fantastic” play book while he’s off in the bar in the other teams home town.

Another point. McCain suddenly has become a “believer” in the safety net value of Social Security? What’s with that. Just three years ago he was trying to get everybody under 55 into private accounts run by folks like Lehman Brothers. Now he says “We have to allow the recently retired to keep their money in Social Security because of the problems with the market.” Guess SS is a lot less “broke” than Wall Street!

If workers had been put into the Bush plan that McCain supported most of them would have lost 50% of the value of their accounts. In fact, if that proposal had been passed (thank God for the Democrats like Obama), the “Republican brand” would likely have been more of the type that ranchers put on cows.

That’s an interesting chart– wonder how in the hell it was put together? Was it a study of actual results or voodoo?

Eli’s up with an awesome graphic.

When in doubt on these economic issues, I tend to listen to Krugman.

I saw Jeffrey Sachs on some of the talking head shows over the weekend.

He seemed to make a lot of sense as well.

He even dared to say (gasp!) “The rich are gonna have to pay more taxes!”

On national TV, while speaking to some rich anchor person, no less!

McCain has advocated the same social security privatization plan the killed Bush’s JARs and also advocated a 1.3 trillion cut in medicare THIS YEAR!

“Reform Social Security: John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts–but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle, but if the Democrats do not act, he will. No problem is in more need of honesty than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs. Americans have the right to know the truth and John McCain will not leave office without fixing the problems that threatens our future prosperity and power.
Control Medicare Growth: The growth of spending on Medicare threatens our fiscal future. John McCain has proposed comprehensive health care reforms that will reduce the growth in Medicare spending, protect seniors against rising Medicare premium payments, and preserve the advancements in medical science central to providing quality care.”

Source: Campaign plan: “Bold Solutions for Economic Prosperity” Feb 3, 2008

Mmm, not mundane, though admittedly something of an acquired taste. The increasing returns/monopolistic competition/location stuff has been a known Prize claim for him for some time.

Possibly some of his currency crisis work would also have rated, but I’m not sure how it stands historically.