Paul Krugman: The Obama Recovery

New York Times ^ | 12/29/2014 | Paul Krugman

[SeekAndFind]

Suppose that for some reason you decided to start hitting yourself in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat. You’d feel pretty bad. Correspondingly, you’d probably feel a lot better if and when you finally stopped. What would that improvement in your condition tell you?

It certainly wouldn’t imply that hitting yourself in the head was a good idea. It would, however, be an indication that the pain you were experiencing wasn’t a reflection of anything fundamentally wrong with your health. Your head wasn’t hurting because you were sick; it was hurting because you kept hitting it with that baseball bat.

And now you understand the basics of what has been happening to several major economies, including the United States, over the past few years. In fact, you understand these basics better than many politicians and commentators.

[Cincinatus]

Correspondingly, you’d probably feel a lot better if and when you finally stopped.

Exactly what happened when I stopped reading this nitwit's commentary.

[Common Sense 101]

Suppose that for some reason you decided to start hitting yourself in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat.

I would imagine this activity would best explain how this alleged "economist" comes up with his assessments of the economy.

[Sasparilla]

Krugman is laughing at the American voters behind their backs just like Gruber.

[SeekAndFind]

I am still wondering how this alleged “economist” won a Nobel Prize in... well.. economics.

[Vaquero]

My retirement accounts have gone up considerably. Corrected for obaminflation caused by printed money? Bupkis.

[Common Sense 101]

He’s a POS liberal, who constantly pushes the idiocy of Keynesian economic theory... how else would the POS Obola win a Nobel Peace Prize?

[Rusty0604]

So our problem is we didn’t hire enough gov’t employees. Paul is always good for a laugh.

[tanknetter]

Didn’t Paul Volker just have him run out of Princeton?

Regardless, there are a couple good analyses out there on the “recovery”. The first is that the big numbers from last quarter came from a consolidation of ObamaCare spending by the public. Iow, if the goverent orders you to spend money (individual mandate) and you do, then the economy will grow (duh)

Second, the big monthly gain in November was driven by crashing energy (gasoline) prices. Which were driven by something the Dems would LOVE to reign in: fracking.

So the conclusion is being driven by the government bullying people into spending in one vital area (healthcare) while being impotent at restraining/containing another vital area (energy)

[VeniVidiVici]

I be economyst.

[Beagle8U]

” What actually happened was that the Tories stopped tightening the screws — they didn’t reverse the austerity that had already occurred, but they effectively put a hold on further cuts. So they stopped hitting Britain in the head with that baseball bat. And sure enough, the nation started feeling better.”

See, cuts to government boost the economy, but it’s like hitting yourself with a ball bat because liberals don’t like it, and when you stop cutting they feel better.

[Team Cuda]

Inflation from 2005 to 2014 was 20.9%. Stock Market (per the DJIA) was 10,717.5 on Dec 30 2005. It closed yesterday at 18,062.15. This seems considerably higher than the 20.9% Inflation rate over the same period of time. I guess I don’t understand the meaning of bupkis.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Suppose that for some reason you decided to start hitting yourself in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat. You’d feel pretty bad. Correspondingly, you’d probably feel a lot better if and when you finally stopped. What would that improvement in your condition tell you?

It would tell me that America finally stopped electing idiots who think like Paul Krugman.

[kjam22]

The really interesting thing is the number of people I know who have been out of the market for the past 5 or 6 years, convinced that the great depression was going to come at any moment.

[Lazamataz]

America cannot survive until the New York Times is burning and every one of its reporters, editors, and other workers are impaled in public.

[Vaquero]

I have a conservative portfolio due to my age. My stocks have risen but I don’t see it keeping up with inflation

[KC_Conspirator]

The author is an outright buffoon. For 6 years this country suffered under the policies of the administration, backed by this imbecile writing for the Slimes.

[DaxtonBrown]

So is this why Japan is doing so well? Krugmanomics?

[mjp]

Meanwhile, back in America we haven’t had an official, declared policy of fiscal austerity — but we’ve nonetheless had plenty of austerity in practice, thanks to the federal sequester and sharp cuts by state and local governments. The good news is that we, too, seem to have stopped tightening the screws: Public spending isn’t surging, but at least it has stopped falling. And the economy is doing much better as a result.

Free market economists believe that cutting government spending is good for the economy because government spending is wasteful, destructive, inefficient, not valuable to taxpayers, and anti-productive. So, when government spending was actually cut and the economy did actually start to improve, that is confirmation that the belief worked.The fact that there was a time lag between when the government spending was reduced and the improvement in the economy is not proof that it doesn't work.

[Team Cuda]

If your personal investment choices under perform the market by a factor of 3, how is this the fault of the government’s?