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Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to Judy Woodruff at PBS:
Ms. Judy Woodruff PBS Newshour
Dear Ms. Woodruff:
I enjoyed your interview yesterday with Bruce Bartlett and Paul Krugman. But I wonder if you’re as baffled by Prof. Krugman as I am.
On one hand, Krugman’s voice is America’s most prestigious, loud, and insistent one for concentrating greater power in Washington. On the other hand, he is forever complaining that Uncle Sam is a tool of destructive special-interest groups or is under the influence of stupid ideas (or both). Of course, his distrust of Republicans is as well-known as it is justified. But from your interview we learn that Krugman believes also that today’s overwhelmingly Democratic Congress is, in his words, “extremely dysfunctional.”
I’d like to ask Prof. Krugman why he’s so keen to entrust vastly more resources and power to an agency that, even when controlled by the political party that shares his values and worldview, is “extremely dysfunctional.” Why is he optimistic that an entity that can, and does, so easily malfunction will nevertheless – when vested with greater power – work selflessly and smartly to improve the lives of ordinary Americans?
Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux
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MnM Cognitive dissonance? Oh, not too much. Vake More like sheer hackery. MnM "Hackery" might be a little unfair. After all, he openly criticizes Democrats. The truly amazing part is that he acknowledges government's destructiveness and and supports increased government authority. vidyohs "Why is he optimistic that an entity that can, and does, so easily malfunction will nevertheless "“ when vested with greater power "“ work selflessly and smartly to improve the lives of ordinary Americans?"Perhaps, most likely, because it is Krugman's mental process that is dysfunctional. stevenmcduffie I am not an economist but, from what I have seen, neither is Mr. Krugman. magilson The People's Romance. muirgeo I was a lot more concerned with Barlett's claim for Hooverism; "Well, I thought, if we were facing the kind of crisis situation that we were when TARP and the original stimulus were enacted, that would be one thing.But I don't think we're facing that. I think we have -- we did enact the stimulus. The money is -- there's a lot of money still to come from that in the pipeline. I think we have only spent about a fourth of it so far.The unemployment rate is coming down. I think that there's a case for, let's wait a little while." Brian Garst That's not Hooverism. muirgeo So can the history revisionist tell me why if Hoover was "FDR lite" how did the economy get much worse during Hoover and gradually improved during and after FDR?Didn't some one mention Cognitive dissonance? I mean really. Your positions on this are childish and laughable.Especially when one can not argue the Coolidge was an interventionist. Of course he wasn't. How'd his non-intervention turn out??? That's not even a matter of re-writing history. Seems the free marketeers don't even want to remember that bit of history.Again your argument now as then is, " How come it's taking then so long to glue back together the shattered vase." while ignoring who's shattered it in the first place.Come on guys. Time to grow up. Humanity has some really serious problems facing it and this will require adult thinking and decision making. sandre You are right, Economy gradually improved under FDR. He reduced unemployment by drafting able bodied young men into the army. For taking bullets, and firing them are the way to improve economy. If we can get all the experienced able bodies men to go overseas, and replace them with unskilled teenager, put in price controls and rationing, that would be the recipe for wonderful improvement in the productive capacity of the economy. Oh one more thing, if we can retool the factories from making things that would improve the material quality of human life to making bullets and bombs to be dropped overseas, that will be a great productive policy. WWII proved it "GDP" grew the strongest ever in U.S history.BTW, Bartlett is on our team - http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/13/john-maynard-k... sandre Again your argument now as then is, " How come it's taking then so long to glue back together the shattered vase." while ignoring who's shattered it in the first place.You are so right. Fate of our economy was hanging by a thread - and thread had a Glass-Steagal vase attached to it's end - Clinton Shattered it to pieces. with the help of the gang of 535 in D.C. It's been very difficult for Bush and Obama to put the vase back together.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gramm-Leach-B... Barbarossa Glas-Steagal would not even have been necessary (not that I'm arguing it actually was) if we didn't have the Federal Reserve and FDIC insurance. sandre It is very important for muirgeo to sleep well at night! Babinich "Come on guys. Time to grow up. Humanity has some really serious problems facing it and this will require adult thinking and decision making."Somehow Lenin's words seem so fitting: "useful idiots".Time to jettison the kiddie corp...Let's hope the winds of change carry us into 2010 and through 2012. tarran That's not Hooverism. Hoover's approach was actually a milder version of FDR's. Massive defecit spending, price controls, make-work jobs programs and the like.The myth that Hoover was laissez faire came far later. It's actually quite entertaining to read FRD'r campaign speeches when he ran against Hoover. He spend a great deal of time advocating a more laissez fair approach and denouncing Hoover's interventionism. danielkuehn I always find this Hoover revisionism weird.Was he Don Boudreaux's dream president? No - of course not. But we didn't run a deficit until 1932!!!!! It's hardly a Keynesian or interventionist approach. And even those deficits were puny. Hoover was a muddled, more or less Progressive early 20th century Republican with no interest in serious counter-cyclical policy at all. He wasn't wedded to laissez faire, but that doesn't mean he was a notable interventionist.RE: "Massive defecit spending"You're kidding, right? We're talking single-digit deficits as a percent of GDP THREE YEARS AFTER THE START OF THE CRISIS! He is not a von Mises clone - I'll grant you that. I'm not sure you can claim much more than that. Brian Garst You've said nothing to refute his characterization, which was accurate. Federal spending increased 57% under Hoover, and he did enact price controls. FDR campaigned against him as a big spender (just as Obama did against Bush). Here's how Hoover described his own actions:"We might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead we met the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic."And again:"We developed cooperation between the federal, state, and municipal governments to increase public works. We persuaded employers to "divide" time among their employees so that as many as possible would have some incomes. We organized the industries to undertake renovation, repair, and, where possible, expand construction."Hoover was an interventionist minded President, who had a history of approachingPrevious post: Testifying before the JEC
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