龙信明 BLOG     Global Edition              Shanghai Diary     Watching China

Paul Krugman - The Man With Two Brains - Economic and Political And Both Apparently Malfunctioning A Tale of Two Moralities By PAUL KRUGMAN

A photo of discredited Junk Economist Krugman I'm sorry to say this, but Krugman appears even less perceptive and competent as a political commentator than as an economist. Krugman's Comments: But the truth is that we are a deeply divided nation and are likely to remain one for a long time. By all means, let’s listen to each other more carefully; but what we’ll discover, I fear, is how far apart we are. For the great divide in our politics isn’t really about pragmatic issues, about which policies work best; it’s about differences in those very moral imaginations Mr. Obama urges us to expand, about divergent beliefs over what constitutes justice. One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state - a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage. This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. When people talk about partisan differences, we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government. Editorial Observations: The US political climate is not fractured because of a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government or divergent beliefs over what constitutes justice. It is fractured because the US chose to politically fractionalise its population into two factions that will perpetually be at each other's throats - the warmongers and the pacifists. What sane person would politically divide a population based on this ideology and then expect harmony and consensus? What the hell would possess us to make that choice? And by what self-inflicted blindness would we do this and not expect open conflict? If we wanted to separate our population into two 'parties', the logical division would be a gender separation of men and women. Or maybe a sexual division - the homos and the heteros. That should make an interesting election campaign. If we wanted an unequal distribution why not choose the rich and the poor - those earning more or less than say $100,000 per year. But what have we done? Our division is between the ideological left and the Christian right - between the pacifists and the war-mongers. The multiple party system and universal suffrage are at the root of the problems, to say nothing of unqualified, incompetent and self-serving candidates.

Here are links to four critical articles on Krugman's 'editorials'. All are a 'must-read'. The first is titled "Paul Krugman appears to have lost his marbles". It appears increasingly likely that Alan Greenspan may not be the last economist to totally discredit himself. Read Here The second is titled "Krugman's Nonsense", on a biased and error-ridden article published in the NYT, with appropriate critical commentary. Read Here The third contains many comments Krugman received from readers (in NYT posts) on his incoherent, raving article. Read Here The last is a scholarly refutation made in response to one of Krugman's Error-Ridden Articles, written by Raghuram G. Rajan, who was foolishly attacked and misquoted by Dr. Krugman in one of his nonsense articles. Read Here