Krugman: Republicans demand disaster when they're not listened to, because Atlas Shrugged

[muriel_volestrangler]

Ah: I see that there was a Twitter exchange among Brad DeLong, James Pethokoukis, and others over why Republicans don’t acknowledge that Ben Bernanke helped the economy, and claim credit. Pethokoukis — who presumably gets to talk to quite a few Republicans from his perch at AEI — offers a fairly amazing explanation:

B/c many view BB as enabling Obama’s spending and artificially propping up debt-heavy economy in need of Mellon-esque liquidation

...
Basically, leading Republicans didn’t just expect a disaster, they wanted one — and they were furious at Bernanke for, as they saw it, heading off the crisis they hoped to see. It’s a pretty awesome position to take. But it makes a lot of sense when you consider where these people were coming from.

After all, what is Atlas Shrugged really about? Leave aside the endless speeches and bad sex scenes. What you’re left with is the tale of how a group of plutocrats overthrow a democratically elected government with a campaign of economic sabotage.

Look, I know it sounds harsh to say that Republicans opposed QE in large part out of fear that it would work, and deliver a success to a president they hated. I mean, the next thing you know I’ll be accusing them of crazy things they would never do, like deliberately trying to undermine delicate nuclear negotiations. Oh, wait.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/john-galt-hates-ben-bernanke/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

[Shrike47]

1. I love Krugman.

No wonder they hate him, he tells them the truth. They hate the truth.

[billhicks76]

33. Those Republicans Are Treasonous

They deserve the worst.

[SharonAnn]

34. They wanted disaster so they could buy up everything on the cheap.

In 2009 this old phrase was trotted out (again:
""It's Times Like These When Money Returns To Its Rightful Owners": So said a banking executive from a conservative Midwest bank I heard speak recently."
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3441234

[malaise]

2. Correct

They want chaos!

[freshwest]

21. 'From chaos comes great opportunity,' the saying goes. Like war, great fortunes are made from it.

I've been saying this all along, since Bush the Lesser got in office, when liberals scoffed:

'But he wouldn't do (pick the outrage) that, it'd ruin the country!'

That was Day One, and some guys lost their jobs immediately. at businesses that were starting. They said their bosses told them Bush was going to shift all the goods they planned to produce to China for cheap labor and no environmental rules and they wouldn't be able to compete.

It wasn't because they didn't want to continue in business. They had paid the start up costs, and thought Gore would win. But like most people with a stake in business, they meet and discuss things. They knew what the Republicans were going to do in January, 2001.

I have warned people that many evil things are done to large groups of people, like telling huge lies about the deficit and how social spending must be cut that will kill people, or taking away the right to vote or control the intimate aspects of life, they are not stupid at all.

There is a calculus they use, and they are depraved enogh to see the work and treasure of the millions of families or workers as nothing more than fuel for amassing their fortune. We were taught about the problems with 'social Darwinism' back in high school in the sixties and the reasons for the labor movement.

I wonder if students are learning these things now, as civics were said to be removed from public school by Nixon to ensure youth wouldn't know how to change the system legally. The GOP is full of lawyers who use every gambit against us. They do know the law.

They took over Congress and use their legal authority to steal all that people gave their lives to have and thwart their chances for improving their lives. They did get civic lessons, but use the system to serve themselves and not the people.

[A Simple Game]

23. Wow, a new way to bash liberals. Now it's our fault that Bush was more

evil than we thought he would be. Please enlighten us, how did you come to this conclusion?

[appalachiablue]

24. +1. Liberals who doubt the ability of the monied class and the GOP

with their lawyers and accountants, to plunder, pollute and destroy us and this country without mercy are lazy, weak fools or people overconfident in their own superiority and invulnerability which is toxic. One of the features of newer white collar, investor class Dem. pols with no labor history or compassion that I detest is their weakness, also their avarice. Of all people, Dems. pols have only to look to US history if they don't know how bad it was and it can be again. One of the reasons I value Sen. Sanders so much is he knows and lays out just what the RW is doing and it's horrifying. And he knows the history.

Democratic officials, if they're able to do anything, need to reinstitute Civics, sans Koch-RW Stink Tank influence. If the GOP can implement 'restoration of religion' bull, we can demand the re-learning of our government and history- it can't all be one way. Also critical is to stop the privatization for profit degradation of public schools by corporate shills and to tackle the consolidated corp. media that's given us RW Hate and programming for the dumb, through the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the FCC and the Fairness Doctrine. The comfort and gravy train of insulated centrist leaders can't last forever; the Third Way army needs to disband and we need to return to Democratic Party values and start working immediately on a large domestic agenda.

The Party is weaker and older in age than I've ever seen it, apart from highly dedicated individuals like Warren, Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Alan Grayson and others. There's a glaring age gap between 40-60 (in Non-Corporate Dems.) probably due to the rise of Reaganomics, money and consumerism. But the false free market, trickle poison lure has to end. And thank God for the Castros...

[Enthusiast]

3. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

[NutmegYankee]

4. Calling Republican Economic treason right out! Go Krugman Go!

[marym625]

5. K&R! Big time

Go Krugman!

And about Atlas Shrugged; my mom's best friend, a very rich woman whose politics were the polar opposite of my parents, told me reading it was all I needed to know. I was 15 at the time.

I read it and became more liberal than I already had been. I admit, I skipped about 30 pages of the 60 page John Galt speech. Only part I skipped but I just couldn't take anymore of it.

[hifiguy]

17. You slogged through a lot more than I did

some 30+ years ago. I got to the "tunnel scene" and arrived at the Dorothy Parker conclusion - this was not a book to be tossed aside lightly, it should be flung with great force. Preferably into a roaring fireplace.

[marym625]

27. I agree

But I am glad I read the entire book, less those 30 pages. I was able to argue intelligently about every little thing my mom's friend talked about. Which, I'm sure, was at least in part to see if I actually read it.

[bemildred]

6. Yep, that's it. The disobedient must be punished, and they are very disappointed

if the necessary debacle does not occur to show how right they were all along and how necessary they all are to the rest of us. Narcissism in all it's glory.

[Cha]

7. It must be exhausting to be a 24/7 Liar.. working to take your country down into the abyss and blow

up the Planet in the process.

Thanks Paul Krugman.. mahalo muriel

[erronis]

30. And some people (e.g. Kristol, Krauthammer) don't know how to be otherwise

They couldn't say "good night" to their partner (if they have one) without lying.

Pathological sycophants to their handlers. I feel for them and their spawn, and wish they were on a spaceship to the other side of their heaven.

[JDPriestly]

8. Priceless.

About the bad sex scenes. I read Atlas Shrugged as a kid (it was the 60s; I was "innocent" and uninformed) in college. I remember the horrible philosophy, the utter lack of human or spiritual values, the boring writing. I had completely forgotten the sex scenes until Krugman mentioned them. Now, after 51 years of marriage, I'm wondering whether I should re-read the book and write a critique based on those 51 years of experience -- just of the sex scenes, mind you.

I do remember thinking after reading the book that if I became an Ayn Rand follower, I would never be able to have a family and raise and love my children as I wanted to. (At that time, my dream was six children. Didn't happen.) Was it Ayn Rand's selfish philosophy or the bad sex scenes? Hmmmm! Maybe a little of each!

How in the world can any adult take Ayn Rand seriously? It is utterly beyond me. She was a bad writer. She was, well I hate to say it, but if she lived the life she idealized in her books, she was a bad person. And now, I am reminded that she was probably a bad lover. Why would anyone emulate or admire her? She even looked and acted angry and mean -- not the image of a person leading a fulfilled, loving, good life.

Anyway, for those who have not yet read Ayn Rand, don't waste your time. Her kind lost the Russian Revolution for a reason. Unfortunately, those who took over weren't any better than her bunch was, but that does not make her philosophy a good one.

I don't believe in banning books, but Ayn Rand's belong in the junk heap. Sorry I wasted even a small portion of my youth reading them. Worthless nonsense. I had forgotten that not even the sex scenes were worth reading. That's my two cents.

[Buns_of_Fire]

11. Dorothy Parker's review wasn't for this book, but it suits anything written by Ayn Rand...

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

[spooky3]

32. Great quote!

[sendero]

9. While I'm not remotely interested...

... in anything written by Ayn Rand, I find the idea that anything has been 'fixed' amusing. Nothing is 'fixed'. Labor participation is at 67%. Wealth creation is all at the top of the income strata. One could make the case that without QE things might be even worse and it's really impossible to argue either way. But nothing is 'fixed' and that is a fact.

Call me when interest rates are back to normal.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. You're the first to mention anything being 'fixed'

so I'm surprised you bother with the quotes around it.

Krugman blogged about interest rates recently too; he linked to Bernanke's new blog, in which he explains that interest rates are not 'artifically low', as some complain, and that higher interest rates are beneficial for those who already have money: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/ben-bernanke-blog-blogging/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

[GoneFishin]

22. A moderate interest rate would help many working stiffs who have put a little cash aside for a

rainy day. Low interest rates don't hurt the super wealthy, the stock markets are doing fine, and bank credit card rates are as high as ever. But 0% interest rates mean that Joe Schmoe with $3000 or $30,000 of his hard earned money can't make him a couple hundred or a couple thousand extra bucks a year to subsidize his wages without risking it all in the insider's game on Wall Street, which is precisely the goal of low interest rates on savings.

Some may suggest that Fed interest rates are about controlling inflation. That maybe for electronic crap from China, but for groceries, utilities, or a starter home that theory is crap.

[starroute]

12. So the religious right, the plutocrats, and the libertarians share a hatred of democracy

It seems like that's the only thing holding the GOP together at this point.

It also suggests that the Democratic Party could win over many of the non-plutocratic business owners, like the ones freaking out in Indiana over what that stupid law is going to do to their businesses.

[Zorra]

13. A keeper: "What you’re left with is the tale of how a group of plutocrats

overthrow a democratically elected government with a campaign of economic sabotage."

[Avalux]

14. They want to be in charge of everyone and everything else.

When it doesn't work out that way, they want to destroy everyone and everything. The ends always justify the means for them.

[ladjf]

15. Professor Krugman is one of our smartest and best informed thinkers.

Americans would do well to pay attention to what he says. nt

[ErikJ]

16. Thanks for interesting link to Mellonesque-Liquidation.

Great Depression[edit]

Mellon on US stamp
Mellon became unpopular with the onset of the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover, in memoirs published decades later, wrote that Mellon advised him as President to "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate... it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people." Hoover claimed credit for disregarding this advice and intervening in the market, though with little success.[14] There is no corroboration that Mellon ever said such a thing, however, and the claim that he did is inconsistent with his published speeches, which supported anti-recessionary measures by the Federal Reserve. As Treasury Secretary, Mellon was an ex-officio member of the Federal Reserve Board. There successfully urged the Fed to cut its discount rate after the stock market crash in October 1929, and supported subsequent rate cuts. [15] In November 1929, he recommended a cut of 1 percentage point in personal and corporate income tax rates. He supported Hoover's proposal to increase federal construction spending as an antirecession measure. [1]

In 1929–31, Mellon spent much of the time overseas, negotiating for repayment of European war debts from World War I. In 1928 Mellon issued a denial to allegations made by a speaker for the Democratic Party in North Carolina that he held an interest in a liquor distillery, and that he was the largest distiller in the world prior to Prohibition. In a letter written to the Republican executive committee of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mellon admits having stock in a distillery, but that he had disposed of all interest in the company prior to becoming Secretary of the Treasury.[16]

[hifiguy]

18. This is still the best ever comment on Ayn Rand's typing

(I cannot in good conscience call it writing):

“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.”

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. Her books are badly written and boring....

That's why Conservatives mistake it for the Bible.

[calimary]

31. Love it! I've seen that one too. Trying to remember where.

Loved it then, still love it now!

[Demeter]

19. Bernanke didn't help the economy, he papered over the spreading cracks with greenbacks

and stuffed people into the potholes.

[MisterP]

28. that's always the issue with Krugman: all inflation is good inflation and any neoliberalism is

"Keynesianism" and the "government getting into action" that we have to defend

[Hekate]

20. Krugman forever

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. Looks like Paul woke up...

He and Naomi should go out for coffee.

[WillyT]

29. K & R !!!

[TxVietVet]

35. K&R