An Alien Invasion Would Boost the Economy…Says Paul Krugman
- Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:04pm by
Jonathon M. Seidl
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Paul Krugman
Let‘s start out by saying that Paul Krugman probably doesn’t really think the government should lie to the country about alien invaders attacking the world just to boost the economy and create jobs. Still, that’s the analogy he used while appearing with Fareed Zakaria on CNN and trying to explain the brilliance of Keynesian economics.
“If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months,” he said. “And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren’t any aliens, we’d be better–.”
He added: “No. There was a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode like this, in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time we don’t need it [to achieve world peace]; we need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus.”
By the way, it should be noted that Krugman’s comments came in response to Zakaria defending the Keynesian idea that the government could dig ditches and employ people to fill them in order to stimulate the economy:
Eagle-eyed blogger Zombie notes that the alien plot actually originates form an “Outer Limits” episode, not “The Twilight Zone.” And Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey picks apart the Keynesian/Krugman/Zakaria economic theory:
Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics, somehow forgets to tell Zakaria that seizing capital from productive enterprises in taxes (or worse, borrowing against future legitimate production in deficit spending) to fund the “ditch cycle” has opportunity costs — namely, the opportunity to produce something other than pre-filled ditches, which have a real value of zero. That’s actually a significant part of what’s wrong now. Government spending doesn’t create economic growth; it takes money from actual production, and so should be used sparingly and only for necessities.
Krugman then takes Zakaria’s reductio ad absurdum and makes it more absurd by postulating that a mistaken alarm of a space invasion would create vast economic growth, which would just remain even after the Emily Litella moment when the space aliens didn’t invade. Unfortunately, the Nobel Prize-winning economist doesn’t explain what would happen when all of the assets built to meet the threat turn out to be useless and can’t be converted into productive assets for a non-space-war economy. Thanks to the massive seizure of capital it would take to create the defensive and offensive assets to meet that threat, we’d be left with little to power our economy, especially in a highly regulatory (and rationed) total-war economy.
I guess you could call it “far out.”
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Comments (296)
Jim in Houston
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:29pmThis moron is an alien being or is that just a deer in the headlights look. He has a No Bell Prize from the same ******* Jacks box as OweBlamer.
Report Post »Islesfordian
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:41pmApparently there is grain alchohol in the Kool Aid.
Report Post »chazman
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:44pmIs this the same moron that blamed Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for the Phoenix shootings (Giffords) because of ‘targeting?’
just askin’
Report Post »SavingtheRepublic.com
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:48pm~~^^~~^^~~
Krugman IS out of his mind so maybe he is an alien to suggest such things. I couldnt careless that he has the Nobel on economics. Spending money you dont have is not a cure…. unless you have access to a printing machine or digital ledgers like the Fed.
His “oh there was a mistake” theory is flawed b/c you still need money to get out of this slump. The money is gone and being in debt up to our eyeballs with China etc is not a solution. Guys like Krugman ARE the problem these bookworms who get their degrees then land a job teaching need to be banned from any govt job. FYI from what I have seen maybe Im wrong this guy never held a real job and the closest one he had was a 3 month stint for the Central Bank of Portugal in’76! It should be a prerequisite that you have to have a real job for 2-5 years or run a company for 5-10 years if you are going to be advising the nation on fiscal matters. The n you have bat nutty guys like Zakaria who dont know what they are babbling about propping these book worms up! I am sick of guys like Krugman and Obama constantly sticking their noses in business they have no clue on.
Read a thousand books and write a thousand its meaningless if you never had an actual JOB or created jobs. You know there is an old saying: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach!” http://SavingtheRepublic.com
Report Post »Zer0
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:50pmFurther proof the Nobel Prize is irrelevant and meaningless.
Report Post »getalong
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:53pmKrugman uses the same philosophy as the Feds “never let a good crisis go to waste”.
Report Post »Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:01pmMaybe he believes there is a mothership in orbit like Farrakhan does. Makes as much sense as anything he says.
Report Post »NHwinter
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:06pmLets pray aliens come and take him and all the socialist with them. Maybe aliens can teach them something.
Report Post »AnAppealToGod
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:17pmNo it wouldn’t. We’d just put them on welfare and unemployment benefits.
Report Post »the hawk
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:25pmThis guy should get his Mushrooms from the market……….their safer !…….seem him on tv the other night and he‘s defiantly trippin’………………..Nobel Prise?……I dont want one !
Report Post »Jaycen
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:36pmTake from people who produce something useful and give to someone (or some project) that produces nothing. That’s simply supporting the unproductive on the backs of the productive, or another way of stating Imperialism.
You see, in the Liberal theory of the world the lazy, entitled unproductive oppress the productive through legislation and regulation. It’s a fantastic system until the productive catch on and stop producing in order to protect themselves.
sbish
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:43pmAn alien lifeform has invaded the world, they come from the planet Progressivia!
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:45pmHey Paul! What are you smoking!? I want some that…That sounds like good s**t!
Report Post »JournalistStuntDouble
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:57pmHmmmm…sounds familiar…
The Report from Iron Mountain
“They also recommended ”blood games” and that the government create alternative foes that would scare the people with reports of alien life-forms and out-of-control pollution.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Report_from_Iron_Mountain#Contents_of_the_report
Report Post »BonnieBlueFlag
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:04pmThis is fallacy built upon fallacy. It is a fallacy to believe that because war-time spending has improved the economy in the past, peace-time spending will improve the economy in the future. It is also a misunderstanding that war-time spending and military build-up is good for the economy. It isn’t. What people don’t understand is that WWII was good for the American economy not because of the spending of the US Government, but because of the sacrifice of millions of average Joes across the nation.
The communists are very wrong about most things, but they are right that PRODUCTION is important. The higher total output and productivity, the better the economy for everyone. Production was higher during WWII because everyone reduced their consumption through rationing and self control, and upped their production by tending “Victory Gardens” and sending women to work for the first time. Public spending is BAD for the economy because it is wasteful. The more wasteful the spending, the worse the economy. Dumping trillions of dollars on phony spending projects is the same as setting 100,000 tons of food on fire. It helps no one, and only means there is less to go around.
The more wasteful the spending, the worse for the economy.
One thing about a war, though, is it is much easier to convince people to start a victory garden for a war effort than to start one so the government can support lazy do-nothings in the inner city.
http://www.nebraskalife.com/nd09_scr
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:06pmIf space aliens came, say, from the planet “Krug” (I can’t stop laughing) Wouldn’t they be capable of wiping out the human race within a couple of minutes, let alone 18 months? I mean, we have to rely on Russia’s space program to defend us now after all.
Report Post »TSUNAMI-22
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:07pmKrugman is a dope….always was. The guy teaches economics to college students and then wonders why the country is in the fiscal toilet.
Report Post »quicker
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:21pmAnd when they distilled the grain alcohol in lead pipes along with anti -freeze.
Report Post »AOL_REFUGEE
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:21pmLook at this pointy-eared, beady-eyed, shifty-eyed twerp: he’s like Richard Dreyfus overdosed on 5-Hour Energy Drink. You’ve got to be a completely stoned liberal to fall for his crap.
Report Post »avenger
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:37pmHey people..these aholes are working on it.do not be surprised 6/15/2012
Report Post »sambachico
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:46pmPlease let the aliens take krugman with them and do some experimentation to find out how to get rid of the Keynesian gene.
Report Post »BenDover4Obama
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:47pmWOW I feel sorry for Paul Krugman, 1/2 half way through August and the Meds have run out already!
Nobel winners: The list of FOOLS grows
Report Post »Kim Dae Jung
Yasser Arafat
Paul Krugman
Jimmy Carter
Barack Obama
jollylama
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 7:03pm‘Liberalism is a Mental Disorder’ – Dr. Michael Savage
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 7:54pmSo now you know why the United Nations has already appointed an Alien Ambassador! She’s an astrophysicist named Mazlan Othman from Malaysian. No kidding. Here’s the link….
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-09/27/alien-ambassador
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 8:30pmThis guy is so stupid, it hurts.
Report Post »Da Kingfish
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 8:51pmCrap, what idiots, we have a country full of illegal aliens, why would we need any more aliens. Now what we really need is a space craft to beam up all the illegals and take them to anartica, set up a tent city, feed them Muzlims, raise pigs, and teach them english. Does that seem any more far fetched than these liberal D…Wads.
Report Post »hifi74
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 9:36pmThey really do just hand those Nobels out to any old schmuck don’t they?
Report Post »oneshiner
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 11:42pmNow I’m completely convinced they only give the Peace Prize to idiots. Krugman must have come from Rozwell, N.M.
Report Post »Tim Law
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 12:56amKrugman won a Nobel Prize in economics? Who‘s given these prize’s? Obama got one. Gore got one. Now this dumb a$$. Scratching my head trying to figure out who is dumber the givers or the receivers. Who next Nancy P., OBiden, or Jimmy Carter? hmm he may have one
Report Post »Nathaniel Horn
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 1:44amIs this what affluence does to a people? You have otherwise very intelligent people who transform into smart vegetables with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Look at his eyes. This guy is truly insane and he has a national platform and an audience! Talk about the blind leading the blind. We’re in very big trouble folks… That’s why we are going to crash and burn hard. We have to, to purge the cancer of people like this with the fire of reality. No matter how hard idiots like Krugman try to complicate things, the simple, most obvious solutions are still always the best!
Report Post »frankrfuder1
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 2:04amKrugman is a id-io-t in alien terms he cannot even get the right show it was outer limits the episode called architects of fear so when he is trying to say something smart just remember there not!
Report Post »Bum thrower
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 10:55amDrug test, IQ test or economics test; this moron would flunk them all!!
Report Post »Bluebonnet
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 11:21amDoes this man have any photo‘s of himself that don’t make him look like an Idiot? Seeing him makes me believe that all professors are a bunch of idiots, if this Krugman is an example. BTW, even what he says, makes him look like an Idiot, not just the photos. He’s DUMB as dirt, I’m afraid, or acts like it.
Report Post »Rightsofman
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 11:45amThis noodle won a Pulitzer for what – best sci-fi????
Report Post »IntransigentMind
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 2:08pmKrugman is the alien:
http://markamerica.com/2011/08/16/the-aliens-have-landed/
Alien logic, alien thinking, alien morality, and alien propaganda
Report Post »SamIamTwo
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 2:16pmThe only aliens that I know are illegal, soooo he may be right…buwahahahahaha
Krugman is nuttier than a fruitcake!
Report Post »megansmom
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:29pmThat‘s just another example of it’s not what you know but who likes you to get the Nobel Peace Prize you don’t have to accomplish anything but to screw people look at Obama, Al Gore Jimmy Carter, Yassir Arafat, etc if you don’t believe me.
Report Post »thomasdaddy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:49pmAre you serious? Do you even know why he won the Nobel prize?
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:07pmHe won it for being a Socialist Economist. All you have to do to win a Nobel prize is be a Loyal DEMOCRAT. Alot like being a jet fan.
Report Post »thomasdaddy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:10pm13…
It has been my contention that most on this site don‘t have a clue wtf they’re talking about.
Thank you for proving my point!
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:24pmYou must be correct. 9.1% unemployment is terrific. The Barry housing market is Booming, The OBAMA National Debt is Exploding. Soetoro’s Energy prices must necessarily Skyrocket. Hussein’s Arab Spring is refreshing. Baracks gun running scheme is running fast and furious.
Report Post »eagle2715
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:40pm“Are you serious? Do you even know why he won the Nobel prize?”
Yes I do, but that doesn’t excuse him from being called out on making fallacious statements on national television.
The government going around breaking windows or digging ditches only to pay someone to undo their work doesn’t not stimulate the economy. It simply shifts money around, and does it very inefficiently…
Report Post »encinom
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:55pm@Eagle
The problem with tea-baggers is that they have no understanding of history, absent what Becky spoon feeds you. FDR’s new deal is what turned this nation around, WWII was just the new deal on steroids. When people are losing jobs, cutting on one the few sources of spending is only going to make the problems worse. We need more federal spending, we need to repeal the W. welfare to the rich. What we need is the New Deal 2.0.
eagle2715
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:08pmENICOM…
You can stop trying to insult me as it carries no merit or weight. I glaze over your sophomoric statements anywise so save your fingers the typing space.
So your defending the idea of digging a ditch and then paying someone to fill it or vice versa?
The government spending to build dams, roads, and other USEFULL infrastructure is not a problem…Bridges to no were, and pet projects are a problem. So are “green” subsidies and ethanol.
The government can only give someone a job by taking it away from someone else.
The “rich” do not sit on their cash. It’s not in some big vault unused and untouched. It is spent investing in corporations, research, pharmaceuticals, muni bonds that pay for infrastructure in your town, and almost everything else. Go look at the gap between government spending and GDP and explain to me were the rest of that spending comes from? All the government does is get in the way of investors so it can pay its cronies… The money all gets there in the end, but it’s a matter of how fast and how efficiently it does it.
You my friend not only have a lack of real knowledge in history, but economy, philosophy, and good manners as well….
Report Post »eagle2715
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:13pmoh, one other thing…
Look at the dates ENICOM
the New Deal was started in the early 30s…we didn’t get out of the depression untill 40s…What took so long?…Oh yeah….WWII
Why did the rest of the world pull out of the slump so fast?
Why did it last for so long for us?
What was the money actually spent on from the new deal vs. the recent stimulus?
Some interesting questions that you should try to answer Enicom…I already have, atleast to the degree possible without having a magic crystal ball…
Report Post »FEMALL
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:35pm@Eagle2715 Thank you for your cogent and eloquent history and financial lesson.
Report Post »AvengerK
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:52pmThomasdaddy…Yasser Arafat was given a nobel prize also. Wasn’t he a terrorist?
Report Post »jjoy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 8:05pm@ENCINOM
“FDR’s new deal is what turned this nation around”…
Sorry mom… it is your lack of historical knowledge that is showing…
FDR’s “New Deal” was a total flop… Building Guns, Tanks, Aircraft, and Ammunition to fight hitler and hirohito ended the great depression…
Report Post »AvengerK
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 8:07pmThomasdaddy…here’s some more “Krugman” for you.
Report Post »Krugman has only one policy to propose, regardless of topic: Transfer more resources from the discipline and dynamism of markets to the inefficiency and cronyism of government.
Government-run health care. Government-controlled banks. Government bailouts. High taxes. High spending. Krugman wants it all, just like in Europe (which, in 2008, he called “the comeback continent”…you like that one Thomasdaddy? “The comeback continent”..LOL). And Krugman has no problems denying economic science and current events to advocate it.
With the meltdown in Europe obviously the consequence of too much Krugmanism and U.S. unemployment near 10% after a trillion dollars in stimulus, Krugman has attracted some criticism.
For example, Robert Barro, the distinguished Harvard economist, noted that Krugman “just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn’t behave like an economist.”
Krugman is an academic. He has never run a company. He has never created a job. The closest contact he evidently ever had to “business” was as an adviser to Enron, where (in his own words) he was paid $50,000 to help build Enron’s “image.”
Krugman repeats: Obama’s stimulus was too small. Debt is good. Austerity is bad. Deflation is coming. Ken Rogoff, Greg Mankiw, Alberto Alesina (all at Harvard), and other serious economic scientists do not understand economics as well as he does. Those who do not agree with him are “ma
fatjack
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 9:01pmencinom next time just post ‘present’ it will save you time and energy.
Report Post »encinom
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 10:26amFor those ignorant slobs of the Tea Party attacking the New Deal, the only times when the country back slided coming out of the Great Depression was when the FDR administration abandoned the New Deal and focused on Goverment Spending. WWII only proved that the New Deal did not go far enough. It was the massive amount of Goverment spending that broke the Depression. Nor do goverment jobs take private sector ones, just another myth to keep the tea-baggers in line.
Report Post »eagle2715
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 11:01am“… when the FDR administration abandoned the New Deal and focused on Goverment Spending. WWII only proved that the New Deal did not go far enough….”
For the sake of argument let’s say you’re right. Why was many of the first new deal abandoned? I really don’t wana do your homework for you, but since you like to make up history I better. It wasn‘t ’abandoned’. It was found to be unconstitutional by the same courts FDR stacked in his favor. Isn’t that a kick in the ass? Set up the system to agree with you, then go so far out of bounds that even they say no way. The original New Deal (1933) was primarily welfare, not ‘infra-structure’….It started SS, the first department of education and agriculture, NRA, and a dozen other bureaucracies. The second new deal was also a flap. So much so that almost everything in the new deal was repealed during WWII.
If they were working sooo well why did they get rid of all of it, and how did our economy grow after they were gone? LBJ redid a lot of it and we all know how well that worked out….
ENICOM, just because you say its fact doesn’t make it real, any more so than you emotions. Welfare and government spending are great in theory, but in practice they bread ignorance, laziness, and division.
Report Post »Xpat48
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:29pm“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Look at his picture. He even looks psycho. Delusional.
Report Post »starman70
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:07pmHe didn‘t fly over the coocoo’s nest, he landed in it and now he runs it.
Report Post »welovetheUSA
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:27pmKeynesian economy is strictly to impower a government, its all you need to know. This guy is a typical idoit on a typical liberal show……….not at all typical American ideology.
Report Post »encinom
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:48pmAnd the Austrian model is make little men from Texas feel big.
Report Post »jb.kibs
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 9:38pmthat dude said, “If you pay people to dig a ditch, then pay them to fill it back in again. it’s ok. because they are busy and paying taxes.”
so, they want to fake an alien invasion, to boost the economy, because they saw that it worked once in a movie? LOL … these people need to lay of the weed before speaking in public if they can’t handle it properly.
Report Post »RejectFalseIcons
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:27pmYeah, we need to fight back against an alien invasion alright. They’ve already brainwashed the west coast.
Report Post »Who is John Galt?
Brizz
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 6:03pmET or Illegal?
Report Post »thomasdaddy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:26pmLong story short, investments in infrastructure puts people to work and pushes the economy. No secret there! I would think that the analogy would be embraced on this site since most people in here seem to be from another planet! LOL
Report Post »seeker9
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:44pmFrom another planet? You should feel right at home.
Report Post »MODEL82A1
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:46pmIf that were the case, you ignorant dipstick, you wouldn’t be able to swing a dead cat without hitting a bullet train, superhighway or mega-bridge in the United States, we’d ALL work for the government and our economy would be SKYROCKETTING right now.
Report Post »encinom
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:49pmOr that Mormons, like Beck, believe Christ and his brother Satan are aliens from another world.
Report Post »NightWriter
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:53pm@ThomasDaddy – It‘s the ’investment‘ part that you don’t get. So… let me go s.l.o.w.l.y for you
we…do… not… have… any… money… to… ‘invest!’
and there aren‘t enough ’evil rich’ – even taxed ‘fairly’ at 100% to fund your (and O’s) pipe dreams.
Report Post »scarebear83
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:56pmWhere does the money come from to do such? From taxing businesses that would otherwise be creating the jobs we need. Government makes money by taking it from the tax-payers. So basically all one is doing is shifting the money and does no good about long term economical growth. Let the private sector keep more of it’s money and it will create jobs. Tax it and it will pack up and leave for places where there is fewer taxes.
Report Post »thomasdaddy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:03pmmod…
Report Post »You are still as dumb as ever! Just because infrastructure is a smart investment doesn‘t mean it’s done! You make about as much sense and a scope on an uzi!
Investment=spending If the spending doesn’t benefit the majority good luck passing it! A light rail that would benefit 2 maybe 3 states being voted on by the entire congress with representatives all asking, what’s in it for me!
thomasdaddy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:09pmnightwriter….That sounds like a comic book geek if I ever heard one!
Report Post »I think you‘re going slowly because that’s the only way you know how! Must be southern! Investments in infrastructure means job creation! Working Americans pay taxes! Taxes equal revenue! Hope i didn’t go to fast, and i tried to use small words for you! Idiot!
13th Imam
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:11pmAnother Quality Barry Quote
Uh, Eh well, uh shovel ready jobs,, uh , eeh,, is, uh,, aren’t, uh quite, eh ,so, well, uh,, shovel ready. Heh, Heh, Heh
Report Post »thomasdaddy
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:13pmscare,
Report Post »the private sector has had the lost tax rate they’ve seen in 60yrs, and over the past 10yrs 2million jobs created! You still think you suggestion makes sense??
eagle2715
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:35pmthomasdaddy
…..How is it that you come up with only 2 milion jobs in 10 years? The US population increased by roughly 22.2 million from 1980 to 1990. The average unemployment rate from 2000 to 2008 is 5% (discounting after 2008 because the math gets way harder and dosn’t change the number much), so if you take that your looking at over 21 million jobs created just to keep up with population growth… Your off by a factor of 10 there bud…..
Again, who’s rear did you pull that number (2 million) out of?
Report Post »eagle2715
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:49pm“Investments in infrastructure means job creation! Working Americans pay taxes! Taxes equal revenue! ”
Ahhh…Keynesian at it’s over simplified best….One problem…Where does that ‘investment’ $$ come from? Tax payers….. All the government does is take money away from someone, then spend it were it sees fit. And in the process it pays about 50 bureaucrats who make the job harder and a lot less efficient only to make their own jobs seem needed and important.
It’s just like a ponzi scam…Just shuffle the money around so on one can track it and slice off a few % every time it changes hands….
Report Post »Just in time
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 7:11pmIt puts mostly overpaid union people to work.
Report Post »AvengerK
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 7:32pmLOL…really Thomasdaddy..”long story short..infrastructure jobs puts people to work and pushes the economy”? So let me get this straight..you’re trying to sell the notion that taxpayer funded jobs promote growth rather than just move taxpayer money around? It‘s actually funnier watching you preen about it knowing you couldn’t be more self deluded and wrong if you consciously tried.
Report Post »Such economic illiteracy is unusual, even for a dolt like you Thomasdaddy.
Its’ no longer a theoretical exercise. The idea that increased deficit spending can cure recessions has been tested repeatedly, and it has failed repeatedly. The economic models that assert that every $1 of deficit spending grows the economy by $1.50 cannot explain why $1.4 trillion in deficit spending did not create a $2.1 trillion explosion of new economic activity.
Go back to sleep Thomasdaddy.
AvengerK
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 7:42pmNo Thomasdaddy, infrastructure spending doesn’t mean job creation. Business expansion and ventures mean job creation. All infrastrcture spending does is utilize taxpayer money to fund a project, it simply moves taxpayer money around. We just tried it Thomasdaddy but you’re unteachable. If $1 of “stimulus spending” is meant to grow the economy by $1.50 then why hasn’t $1.4 trillion created $2.1 trillion explosion in new economic activity?
Report Post »I know Thomasdaddy..I know..Obama said “shovel ready” and you swooned and cheered and wished upon a star and repeated it to your little heart’s content. Then he said..”shovel ready wasn’t as shovel ready as we expected” but you just can’t get “shovel ready” out of you little atrophied mind can you Thomasdaddy? That‘s because your keepers kept repeating to you didn’t they sport?
scarebear83
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 11:32pmthe private sector has had the lost tax rate they’ve seen in 60yrs, and over the past 10yrs 2million jobs created! You still think you suggestion makes sense??
Here are the facts: This year it is projected Americans will pay 2.567 trillion in taxes as opposed to 39.4 billion in 1950. That’s surely not lower. The reason the tax rates are lower are because so many people are out of jobs and are either paying fewer or none at all in taxes.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/02/09/msnbc-sells-false-idea-taxes-are-lowest-60-years
Report Post »thomasdaddy
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 10:36ameagle,
“…..How is it that you come up with only 2 million jobs in 10 years? The US population increased by roughly 22.2 million from 1980 to 1990. ”
If you actually read my comment you would have seen that I said “over the last 10yrs”. Form 2001-Present 3.6million new jobs were created. 1.1 mil under Bush(in 2 terms) and 2.5million (excluding temp census jobs) under Obama! Bush lost 2.9 million in 2008 alone. My numbers may have been off a tad, but not to your benefit!
Scare,
“Here are the facts: This year it is projected Americans will pay 2.567 trillion in taxes as opposed to 39.4 billion in 1950.”
Are you seriously trying to compare dollar amounts from 60yrs ago? CAN’T BE DONE! Wages were lower, and there are more people in this country today! This is why I only compared tax rates! A loaf of bread was .14 cents in 1952, should that hold any relevance to the cost of bread now? NO!
gerk,
Report Post »“The economic models that assert that every $1 of deficit spending grows the economy by $1.50 cannot explain why $1.4 trillion in deficit spending did not create a $2.1 trillion explosion of new economic activity.”
I don’t get you idiots that come up with these idiotic comparisons! Spending on things that bring no revenue is one thing. Spending on something that will bring in revenue is another! Buying a car to race is different from buying a car to get back and forth to work in! Ones and investment, the other is not!! Geezz!! You don’t have to be st
eagle2715
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 11:12amFrom the last 10 years…Right…what does that have to do with anything? The population increased 20+ million for the time frame in which from 2000-2010 people would of joined the work force. For MOST OF THAT, the unemployment was about 5%, meaning that there were more than 4 million jobs created…
If only 3.6 were created unemployment would of sky rocketed by the simple increase in population. It’s why we add a couple hundred thousand jobs each month but unemployment doesn’t’ budge. It’s because you have to create over 200-250 a month just to keep up with the increase in population….
Your numbers are factually wrong, and likely from some liberal site who is twisting the facts. Do the math. It’s easy, I promise.
Here I’ll do it for you: 200,000 jobs/month x 12months/year x 10 years = 24,000,000 jobs. Easy math…Even if you bring that down to 100,000 your still off by 5x…….And that is just to keep up with population growth!!!!! Unemployment went down for more of Bush’s term than it went up so the numbers are much larger.
2 million jobs over 10 years….WOW….I can’t even come up with an insult to grasp your lack of intelligence or ability to think critically
And by your numbers if Bush only created 2 million jobs because he lost so many…Obama is running a huge deficit on robs right now.
Report Post »scarebear83
Posted on August 16, 2011 at 3:28pmI guess you didn‘t read the link but I’ll go ahead and post some highlights: Now consider that if tax receipts had only grown at the rate of inflation over the last 60 years, we would have taken in only $356 billion last year, or 86 percent less. Put another way, tax receipts in the last 60 years have grown at greater than 6 times the rate of inflation.
Consider that total federal outlays in FY 2010 were 25.4 percent of GDP, the highest since 1945 while America was still fighting World War II as well as mired in the Depression. Our FY 2010 deficit was 10.6 percent of GDP, also the highest since 1945.
As such, for the small majority that are paying federal taxes for everyone’s government to function – or dysfunction depending on how you look at it! – it’s certainly no solace that the total of taxes received is lower as a percentage of GDP than it was 60 years ago especially given a 9 percent unemployment rate.
Let’s be clear: although there were indeed some tax cuts – or, really, additional credits, deductions, and exemptions – that were implemented as part of 2009′s stimulus package, the overwhelming majority of the decline in receipts from FY 2007 are due to a struggling economy and the number of people out of work thereby not paying into the system.
Report Post »Nepenthe
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:26pm“He added: “No. There was a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode like this, in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace….”
Also the premise for Watchman.
Report Post »Brizz
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:59pmMaybe its a publicity stunt for MIB 3
Report Post »Shotgun167
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:26pmThe country just may be better off after the fake invasion is exposed. But the reason would be due to the number of extreme austerity measures that people would willingly submit themselves to in order to fight off the faux invaders. Things were tough during WWII. People willingly submitted to some tough rationing, as we banded together to fight Europe’s war. We would all band together again if an invasion were coming.
Mr Krugman, NOBODY is invading us, so people won’t band together harmoniously. Ipso facto, when the austerity measures come, expect the looters to proclaim “the rich need to pay their fair share” as the moochers riot.
Report Post »margaret1977
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:25pmWell we should thank this clown for letting us know ahead of time what is going to happen in 2012 election ! Obama is psychopath he will do everything to hold the presidency ! i still wonder if he has 666 anywhere on his body? According to VANGA he is the last president of USA ! So people buckle up and hold on to your seats !
Report Post »mrsmileyface
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:23pmI agree NO MORE EXCUSES! Either get out of the way of business or get voted out. I actually prefer both.
Report Post »Xpat48
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:23pmBrudny, stary, Zydokomuna…….”Nut-case.”
Report Post »cece959
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:22pmMillions of honest, hard-working people are out of work and this clown gets a paycheck for crap like this. It just staggers the imagination.
Report Post »margaret1977
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:21pmWe already have alien invasion ! Liberals and Obama ! and it still does not work ! Why you people are surprized about Nobel Prize ? They are all in the same boat GLOBAL GOVERNMENT !
Report Post »EdBoo
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:20pmKrugman is a space cadet. Zakaria is a flaming liberal who hates all things capitalist.
Krugman and others of his ilk have run out of useful answers (a.k.a. excuses) for the mess Obama and his handlers have dumped us into. Now we are off and running to the theoretical in a desperate attempt to deflect direct questions. A pre-peremptory attack if you will. Watch for more of this to balance out the race-baiting just now being ramped-up. Libs are getting very desperate as the polls speak the truth.
I hope for Krugman’s sake no one else saw this!!! Every so often he comes up with something well thought out and even sensible. But here it is stuff economics classes analyze later in targeted efforts to show how not to make a fool of yourself in public. Wanna’ get in a textbook? This is one way to do it.
Here we are – looking desperately for answers to economic issues from our ubiquitous talking political heads and this is what we get? CNN needs to ship these two off to MSNBC where that shrinking audience will welcome such drivel with open arms.
Report Post »MODEL82A1
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:20pmHow do you think Alfred Nobel (who invented dynamite, in case you didn’t know) would feel about the state of his namesake prize over the past few decades?
Report Post »dscon
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:20pmpaul may be correct on the economy problem,
Report Post »but his view‘s on iran won’t get him elected.
BTW is that a keebler elf or is it krugman?
freeweever
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:20pmAll government salaries are paid with taxes, permit fee‘s or penalty’s like tickets. They don’t make anything for sale in the government, they don’t make chairs or tables. I cant take their signed off permit and sell it at a fair or market it is just another fine in the form of a taxing permit. In order to pay the enormous government salaries of the public works class of ogre’s we must get at least ninety percent of them thru one of these entities above. I told a building inspector that his salary was directly linked to the people of whom he is inspecting’s success as a business.Then he said no, he is paid by the state. I laughed and said the state is paid by the private businesses period. He thought for a second I could smell the smoke, and he then said ,“I pay taxes out of my salary”, at which point I almost fainted. I told this fine young inspector that his salary was already taxed once when the private citizens of the private sector gave it to the state in the form of a tax payment. Then the state pays public employees“him” out of that already taxed money so it is double indemnity. It is money taxed twice,“FOOL”. “Unite The People” once again for tyranny is before us once again.
Report Post »elosogrande
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:19pmWhen these two get togather, you have the fool and the fool’s fool. Take your pick as to who’s on top.
Report Post »This_Individual
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:18pmI don’t like that (R) next to his name, but I might just vote for Dr. Paul.
Report Post »amerbur
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:17pmYou mean put us more in debt and decrease the value of our money (the invisible thief). You are the slime of the earth.
Report Post »Russman
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:15pmHe’s not the only complete idiot to get the Nobel prize……………………..
Report Post »kdzndogdad
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:39pmMore proof that any Nobel Prize is nothing more than an award for “Right Thinking” in the eyes of the committee members.
Report Post »Uncurable wound
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:15pmWhy cant someone put a bullet in this thing.
Report Post »Wouldnt you just LOVE to punch this “guy” right in the mouth?
JimCDew
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:13pmKrugman’s Nobel for economics was for what great contribution to society???????
Report Post »blue_sky
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:11pmWithout Ron Paul, people at large and the media would have no clue what is Keynsian Economics and what is Austrian Economics. Thank you, Dr. Ron Paul for leading us to road of individual liberty, peace, and sound money.
Report Post »RepubliCorp
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 5:56pmAnyone live during Jimmy Carter knows Keynsian Economics……. So I don’t need Ron Paul to tell me
Report Post »teapartyconservatism
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:11pmRegarding economics, America should listen to Congressman Ron Paul, MD, Lt Col, USAF, Ret., very carefully because he’s correct.
Except for Dr. Paul, politicians avoid the real cause of our economic problems, which is not the debt ceiling but the Federal Reserve. It’s caused a century of turmoil including the great depression and a 95% devaluation of our once ‘good as gold’ dollar, now replaced by fiat Federal Reserve notes.[1]
As Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, Dr. Paul is more knowledgeable about monetary policy than any other member of Congress. He is absolutely correct about how to solve the economic problems threatening our jobs, our children’s future and the very survival of America as a free nation!
We don’t want to waste years with a detailed audit of the Federal Reserve that accomplishes nothing. We want to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to economic sanity!
1. E. Griffin, “The creature from Jekyll Island: a second look at the Federal Reserve”
Report Post »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7auQEXTWomA
Ookspay
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:37pmYou are correct Ron Paul does know economics and monetary policy very well. I would say that Mitt Romney also has a pretty good grasp on the subject.
If I could wave a magic wand I would make Ron Paul President, right after I wanded myself a super model for each arm. Ron Paul has NO chance, sorry but it’s true. We live in a shallow uneducated time where media presence and photogenic smiles are valued more than depth of knowledge.
Romney/Rubio Romney/Bachmann Perry/Rubio Perry/Bachmann
Report Post »rotcarpenter
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:39pmThis story is about Ron Paul? Is he a space alien?
In all honesty, Be independent like you claim and stop hording yourself behind a single man. You’re acting like the Obama zombies. Ron Paul has some good ideas but people are chanting his name as if you were all in a cult.
Report Post »Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on August 15, 2011 at 4:57pmWhich is why he should be Secretary of the Treasury for whoever wins the Presidency. I don’t think Dr. Paul can win it.
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