Saturday, March 14, 2009

Krugman Worried About Obama's "Out of Touch," "Money-for-Nothing" Financial Policy


Paul Krugman: Stimuls plan doesn't go far enough
3/13/2008

President Barack Obama's plan to stimulate the economy was "massive,""giant,""enormous." So the American people were told, especially by TV news, during the run-up to the stimulus vote. Watching the news, you might have thought the only question was whether the plan was too big, too ambitious.

Yet many economists, myself included, actually argued that the plan was too small and too cautious. The latest data confirm those worries -- and suggest that the Obama administration's economic policies are already falling behind the curve.[More]

Princeton University Economics professor, 2008 Economics Nobel Prize recipient, "conscientious" liberal, closeted socialist and Barack Obama apologist Paul Krugman is nearing disappointment. The president, he argues, is "not doing enough" to ruin, I mean stimulate the economy, which is the usual Keynesian canard.

What is surprisingly shocking here is Krugman's near candor regarding his worries about Obama's handling of the economy so far. Here are the salient points:

  • Obama’s policies are “falling behind the curve”
  • Unemployment is “rising fast”
  • The promise of jobs saved or created “looks underwhelming"
  • Obama’s belief in a recovery this year “isn’t backed by any data or model” of which Krugman is aware and that, in the face of said data, the President’s recovery statement “sounded out of touch”

(BTW, given the enormity of the economic crisis, shouldn’t Obama be spending more than just one hour a day with his economic advisers? Just asking)

  • There is a “continuing failure” to announce bank restructuring plans
  • The Obama administration has a “money-for-nothing financial policy”
  • Without more, bigger bailouts and porkulus packages, what passes for Obama’s economic policies “will never catch up”


No amount of liberal, head-in-the-sand propaganda, wishful thinking and hand-wringing will change the fact that if Obama "stays the course," the American economy will falter.

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