Lately, he's been all over the circuit shooting down Obama's plan to avoid economic-Armageddon. And just when we were getting used to nothing but sweet harmonies from the Left, now this dissonant note.
Bailing out the banks, the way they've proposed it, won't work.
Top officials in the Obama administration are still in the grip of the "market mystique." They still believe in the magic of the financial marketplace and in the prowess of the wizards who perform that magic.
Crap.
But the wizards were frauds, whether they knew it or not, and their magic turned out to be no more than a collection of cheap stage tricks. Above all, the key promise of securitization — that it would make the financial system more robust by spreading risk more widely — turned out to be a lie. Banks used securitization to increase their risk, not reduce it, and in the process they made the economy more, not less, vulnerable to financial disruption.
Even worse, I think I'm starting to agree with him, and the growing number of critics on the left.
A good deal of the opposition coming from the right can be written off as partisan politics as usual; in addition to the overall sense of philosophical disorientation infecting Republican politicians, these days.
Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people.
Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials.
(In good humor, Krugman quipped about his new infamy gained from the cover: “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first put on the cover of Business Week.”)
Interestingly, in all shit-talk about a populist uprising, lately, it's the most marginalized and radical of each side of the political spectrum that are bending back on itself, aligning the interests of anti-corporate, pro-environment liberals (socialists) and anti-globalization, small-government libertarians (anarchists).
Check it: Last weekend you had protests all over the country, under the loose organization of A New Forward, from those following the banner of Krugman, and others, like Simon Johnson and Mike Lux. They call for, respectively, and the protesters by proxy, nationalization, decentralization and reorganization of the bad banks. Let's be clear, the BAD banks--not even close to most of the banks in the country. They think the administration is playing game as always with big money, and so, they're anti-Obama.
Then (file under: you just can't make this shit up), the anti-Obama sentiment from the other side, wants government to crawl back under the rock it was under for the last 30 years (regulation-wise) and stay out of this mess all together, especially where it concerns taxes, fair or otherwise.
Unfortunately for them, and the rest of the far-right--and they are really just so far out of touch--they "have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so," Krugman admits. Whatever merits (ahem) their arguments might have are obscured by unknowingly self-mockery, it's almost as if the right is trying to put Jon Stewart and Colbert out of a job (not very good stimulus!), or at least competing for laughs.
Yes, it's taken this long: as an American, I'm finally embarrassed by the right-wing nuts in our country. OK, maybe it's not the first time, but the most recent, to be sure.
How so? Tea-bagging. Yep. I won't be the one to spoil the fun: if you don't know why this is fucking hilarious then you won't find out from me. All I can say is, keep up the good work. Keep those bags wet and deep, young Republicans.
Who me? Sure kid, but you're a bit too young.
(Michelle Malkin.)Ugh, really? Well, OK, I guess...
That's just a given.
Ah, no way.
"Tar and feather" in reference to our first black president? Get back to tea-bagging, lady.
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