All the president's zombies

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?hpw Op-Ed Columnist
All the President?s Zombies

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By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2009

The debate over the ?public option? in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction ? in Congress, if not with the broader public ? simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.

Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism ? by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.

Call me na?ve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.

Let?s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the ?magic of the marketplace? were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn?t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

How nice!

Ronald Reagan is gone now but his legacy will live on. His dream for a better tomorrow came true. Because of Reagan, the Soviet Union is no more. Because of Reagan, our country fell in love with itself once again. We became proud to be Americans instead of apologetic for it. Because of Reagan, we learned that lower taxes and economic good times are not mutually exclusive.
The disease that took his life, as horrible and agonizing as it was, allowed him a luxury few presidents have been afforded. He had 10 years of honest assessment while the detractors with good taste dared not tear him down while in such a sympathetic state. Those 10 years allowed the true Reagan legacy to grow and blossom without the hateful heel of the revisionists stamping it out.
I know in some perverted quarters of our society there are those who celebrate the demise of Ronald Reagan. But, fortunately, their hatred is drowned by the millions of tears shed by a nation of mourners who, at last, appreciate his wisdom and who live in the shadow of the tree he planted. A tree that bears the fruits of happiness and security for anyone who wishes to pick from its branches. As long as freedom-loving Americans prevail, that tree will never die.
Phil Valentine
June 5, 2004

http://www.philvalentine.com/ReaganWasRight.htm

good answer...i learned something!

good answer...i learned something!

:clap:

:clap:

push,push,blow....repeat

push,push,blow....repeat

tap tap tap...repeat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?hpw Op-Ed Columnist
All the President?s Zombies

*
Article Tools Sponsored By
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2009

The debate over the ?public option? in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction ? in Congress, if not with the broader public ? simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.

Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism ? by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.

Call me na?ve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.

Let?s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the ?magic of the marketplace? were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn?t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Real median income in the United States, 1967 - 2006. Krugman is a partisan hack.

Rather than discuss Reaganomics specifics or other of his idealogical principals, I can say this from personal experience... I want less government. And it's not based on someone else's ideas.

And I don't think that government is always bad. If you think in simple terms, we are the government. But when it gets too big or broad, we lose any connection to it. We can fire a corporation by not using it anymore. Or, if the corporation gets too big, the government can serve a role as referee. Anti-trust situations or monopolies etc.

But I want my government to protect us from being owned by big business. I don't want the government to be the big business. Think about this. What if we decided to change our education system drastically and do away with a public system, because we realized it wasn't working. Could we ever do it? No way, it is too big of a voting block.

If the government employes everyone in the medical industry, that is a damn big voting block. I say, even though I know we can't do it, we should get rid of medical insurance alltogether and the prices would drop as everyone would pay their own way and demand lower prices. Have you seen hospital bills? Are they serious? No way would that be able to continue.

Btw, I don't have insurance and the Obama plan would help me, I guess. But I just don't think it's right. I would not mind seeing sweeping changes, like I said, getting rid of a 3rd party paying. And another thing that would help. Don't make medical students go to school for so many years. Let them go through college in a kick ass program and then put them under real doctors, in the room, for a few years. Real world expericne is where they do all their learning anyway. My brother knew diddly squat for a few years after he got out of medical school. It was after he started seeing patients and saw ceratin things over and over that he recognized things.

That way, medical school loans would not be an issue. These are real world solutions but they won't be inacted or even discussed. There is an example. The education system is so subsidized by the government and is so powerful, you can't change it.

But for teachers they created 'fast track' systems to get more 'qualified' teachers into the class room. Anyway, I've rambled :idontno:

Peace to everyone and best wishes.

I just loved it during the Reagan years when one could take a tax deduction on the interest on credit cards. I just spent because there seemed to be no penalty.:idontno:

I just loved it during the Reagan years when one could take a tax deduction on the interest on credit cards. I just spent because there seemed to be no penalty.:idontno:

:lolabove:...filter, off! Oh, BR...you really are too much.

Why is Reagan always credited with the Soviet Union falling? If you follow the logic that he made a statement and was President at the time then check out these other amazing things some of our Presidents have done:

1903 - Theodore Roosevelt kicks off flying.
1928 - Calvin Coolidge cures disease with penicillin.

The point is that the Soviet Union was already crumbling from the inside. Throw in the fact that there was mass civil unrest due to Chernobyl and the fact is that in 20 years a Russian could be lauding over Putin as the man that brought down the United States.

P.S. The spend them into bankruptcy argument is bogus. That only lined the pockets of military contractors. Most of the military infrastructure that people on both sides of the iron curtain thought was there was propaganda akin to Enron's profits.

Why is Reagan always credited with the Soviet Union falling? If you follow the logic that he made a statement and was President at the time then check out these other amazing things some of our Presidents have done:

1903 - Theodore Roosevelt kicks off flying.
1928 - Calvin Coolidge cures disease with penicillin.

The point is that the Soviet Union was already crumbling from the inside. Throw in the fact that there was mass civil unrest due to Chernobyl and the fact is that in 20 years a Russian could be lauding over Putin as the man that brought down the United States.

P.S. The spend them into bankruptcy argument is bogus. That only lined the pockets of military contractors. Most of the military infrastructure that people on both sides of the iron curtain thought was there was propaganda akin to Enron's profits.

Revisionist theory! :lolabove:

i always get a kick out of someone referring to paul krugman for any economic advice. this man is consistantly wrong everytime yet because he's a far left economic columnist from the NYT he somehow has credibility?

and dont get me going on reagan. the left will never see his leadership for what it is and thats because they dont want too-period. if our current president did what reagan did we may very well be out of this recession or would at least see a light at the end of its tunnel. reagan knew like most clear thinking people that you cant spend your way out of debt.

Real median income in the United States, 1967 - 2006. Krugman is a partisan hack.

Paul Krugman - The New York Times Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page and continues as professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford. At MIT he became the Ford International Professor of Economics.

Mr. Krugman is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes. His professional reputation rests largely on work in international trade and finance; he is one of the founders of the "new trade theory," a major rethinking of the theory of international trade. In recognition of that work, in 1991 the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark medal, a prize given every two years to "that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge." Mr. Krugman's current academic research is focused on economic and currency crises.

At the same time, Mr. Krugman has written extensively for a broader public audience. Some of his recent articles on economic issues, originally published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American and other journals, are reprinted in Pop Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist.

On October 13, 2008, it was announced that Mr. Krugman would receive the Nobel Prize in Economics.

30A, care to match that resume? who's the hack?

i always get a kick out of someone referring to paul krugman for any economic advice. this man is consistantly wrong everytime yet because he's a far left economic columnist from the NYT he somehow has credibility?

and dont get me going on reagan. the left will never see his leadership for what it is and thats because they dont want too-period. if our current president did what reagan did we may very well be out of this recession or would at least see a light at the end of its tunnel. reagan knew like most clear thinking people that you cant spend your way out of debt.

good post

Real median income in the United States, 1967 - 2006. Krugman is a partisan hack.

30A, 1980-2006 real income rose from 40k to 48.2k. there's your 22 percent. take the time to read your own charts. think a little before you knee jerk post.

dictators have the best of educations and many have received the nobel prize. and your point is.................

one can have the best possible resume, but are his predictions correct? and answer to that is "no" when it comes to krugman. he constantly wrong and thats simply a fact. but go ahead, take his advice....

dictators have the best of educations and many have received the nobel prize. and your point is.................

one can have the best possible resume, but are his predictions correct? and answer to that is "no" when it comes to krugman. he constantly wrong and thats simply a fact. but go ahead, take his advice....

exceptional, content filled post