OBAMA ON THE ECONOMY IN GALESBURG: STUBBORN POWER OF FALSE NEO-AUSTRIAN NARRATIVES WEBLOGGING

Obama turns neo-Austrian:

Towards the end of those three decades, a housing bubble, credit cards, and a churning financial sector kept the economy artificially juiced up. But by the time I took office in 2009, the bubble had burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, and their savings. The decades-long erosion of middle-class security was laid bare for all to see and feel.

For three years two Harvard Economists have enjoyed not only appreciative reviews of their Article  “This time is different” but, better, have watched as its implied policy recommendations have been implemented in country after country to the misfortune of the millions of Greeks,Italians, Irish   and ,yes, Americans  put out of work in an economic storm  .that only Andrew Mellon could have loved. (Joke: A Mellon to H, Hoover “Could you give me a nickel,I want to call a friend?” H.Hoover “Here’s ten cents,call both of them” )

From about 2000 Dean Baker reported that we were in a real estate bubble which would end with a collapse. In Jan  2004 he even offered a $1000 prize for the  economist who could make the best attempt at disproving  him (and paid it to Hilary Croke a researcher for the Fed. )
 

Here was Baker last week, commenting on the Washington Post's view of the economy.

 QUOTE

o In New York city “Between 2006 and 2010, the amount spent (by the school system) on arts and music equipment and supplies was cut by 79 percent

o nearly one fourth of all public schools have not a single art, music, theater or dance teacher on staff

o at Brooklyn Tech (where Flavius'  grandson goes) 24 percent of the students were black in 1999-2000, compared with 10 percent during the 2011-2012 school year

o At Bronx Science, the share of black students dropped from 9 to 3.5 percent over the same period.

An excerpt from  Dean Baker in yesterday's Guardian

Just to remind folks, Reinhart and Rogoff (R&R) are the authors of……………..(a) history of financial crises, This Time is Different. ....…the main conclusion…….. is that high ratios of debt to GDP lead to a long periods of slow growth.

be sure you have a big bag.

Obama was wrong to put the chained CPI on the table. I'm fully aware that the Social Security fund will be exhausted in 2000 something or other . And it won't make any difference . The then current contributions from payroll taxes will cover some large % of the requirements and the balance can bloody well be contributed by the public. After all,by then there would have been around 100 years during which the public enjoyed lower taxes because of the subsidy from the social security surplus it'll be time for the public to return the favor.

“It goes without saying that Republicans oppose any expansion of programs that help the less fortunate-along with tax cuts for the wealthy, such opposition is pretty much what defines modern conservatism”

Krugman today.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

• Paul Krugman: The Urge to Purge: "When the Great Depression struck, many influential people argued that the government shouldn’t even try to limit the damage…. Andrew Mellon…. Joseph Schumpeter… “artificial stimulus leaves part of the work of depressions undone.” Like many economists, I used to quote these past luminaries with a certain smugness…. How naïve we were.

Brad Delong, today.

Those of us who know the numbers, or who simply live in America and look around, know that the 47 percent who aren’t paying federal income taxes this year are by and large not “moochers.” About a fifth are elderly retired. About two-thirds are in households with incomes of less than $20,000 a year—definitely not living high. And nearly one-third owe no income taxes because of the earned-income and child tax credits, which both became law with bipartisan support.

Herod 

Today has been one of those perfect winter days, cold, brilliant and utterly still, when the bark of a shepherd’s dog carries for miles, and the great wild mountains come up close to the city walls…

Barges are unloading soil fertilizer at the river wharves. Soft drinks and sandwiches may be had in the inns at reasonable prices. Allotment gardening has become popular.

Brad Delong carried a piece today worthy of Paul Krugman ( I can think of no higher praise) .By Paul Krugman.

Here’s a taste

The original argument against expansionary fiscal policy in the current conjuncture was that it was not worth undertaking because of crowding-out. Fiscal expansion would push up long-term real interest rates and that would diminish private investment. The net effect on demand, employment, and spending would be zero--or even less than zero: the "expansionary austerity" meme.

 

Until 1960 a mother who had an autistic child not only had to deal with that heart break , she also had to listen when the  Freudian  psychiatrists or psychologists  she consulted "helped" her by telling her she made her child autistic.. 

Most governors are refusing to set up medical exchanges.Thank you , thank you , thank you.

 Understandably it's not a compelling topic today against the back drop of the Connecticut killings but maybe we'll look back on this period  as when we made the first step towards single payer.

The following is from Brad Delong.It takes some work to sort out which K is speaking but it's worth the effort.

etc.

Samuel Brittain , yesterday's FT

" I have a table of the behavior of the main......economies since their pre-recession peak of 07-08. Canada heads the list with a net gain of real GDP of 4.1% The US comes next with 2.2% followed by Germany with 1.7.

France is still  0.8% behind its earlier peak, Japan is 1.9% short..........

These are ....historical records, not forecasts. The discrepancies are too large to be explained by demography. The US must be doing something right......"

I must have missed the WSJ's coverage.

10% of its votes are still missing and will take until this afternoon to be tabulated.

In 08 Obama got 58% of Dade but since then there has been a shift in the ethnic mix further increasing the preponderance of immigrants.

Still hard to see this eroding Obama's overall lead in the state

The Gallup tracking polls on which I've been wasting good space here aren't worth the effort. IMHO successive reports appear to show important changes which are purely the result of Gallup's methodology

Consider Obama's rating in  the  polls issued on               

             10/21                                 10/23                 and       10/26

Further to my two days' old post  " Obama's quick Gallup recovery".....after being mired at 45% in Gallup's tracking  poll of  likely voters Obama's % starting rising this week

Poll published

Tuesday.              46%

Wednesday          47

Thursday              47

Today's Gallup  tracking poll has Obama back up to a 47% approval rating. That compares with recent history as follows

Gallup’s " likely voter" reports