Paul Krugman mocks conservative inflation truthers

[DonViejo]

The New York Times columnist's take on whether right-wing economists will ever learn: "Hahahahaha"

ELIAS ISQUITH

In his latest column for the New York Times, award-winning economist and popular liberal pundit Paul Krugman argues that no amount of evidence will ever make inflation-obsessed conservative economists come to their senses, mainly because their opposition to aggressive monetary policy is based on an ideological opposition to government rather than facts.

“Needless to say, it’s not the first time a politically appealing economic doctrine has been proved wrong by events,” Krugman writes in reference to the low interest rates and levels of inflation that have defined the recovery-era economy, despite conservative warnings that government action to save the economy would cause financial ruin.

“So those who got it wrong went back to the drawing board, right?” Krugman jokes. “Hahahahaha.”

The reason he laughs, Krugman writes, is because “money is indeed a kind of theological issue” for conservatives, even if the uninitiated would think it more a “technical” matter. “Many on the right are hostile to any kind of government activism, seeing it as the thin edge of the wedge,” Krugman writes, “if you concede that the Fed can sometimes help the economy by creating “fiat money,” the next thing you know liberals will confiscate your wealth and give it to the 47 percent.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/07/paul_krugman_mocks_conservative_inflation_truthers/

[Doctor_J]

1. Prof Krugman speaks too pedantically in this piece

Edge of the wedge? Fiat money?

Here let me

They are lying, deliberately, to try to bring down everyone except the 1%. I know it's lying, they know it's lying, and the reason they know it's lying is because it has been disproven many times over. I want one of their leaders to either debate me, soon, or admit that their entire cabal is made of up paid liars and propagandists".

Much better

[conservaphobe]

2. Economy truthers are very annoying.

No matter how great the economic data coming out is, it's always "the books are cooked" or "devil's in the details."

The "I'm doing poorly, so I know for a fact the economy sucks" is another group of people who proliferates this bullshit.

[jwirr]

3. He is totally correct about it being a theological issue for many rw conservatives. Calvinism has

long held that wealth is a sign of God's blessing on them because they are "saved" and that poverty is the total opposite - proof of man's sinfulness.

[Enthusiast]

4. Yes, and wealth = virtue.

[jwirr]

5. Exactly. And what many do not understand is that Calvinism is the basis for many religions not just

the Christian Reformed. It is not just one church.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

6. Milton Friedman damned the Federal Reserve for not expanding the money supply in the Depression

Friedman, in his Monetary History of the United States, said that the Federal Reserve was responsible for many of the woes of the Great Depression in the US because the Fed did not expand the money supply to any real extent until 1931.

He glosses over the minor fact that the Fed was required by law to be able to back 40% of the money with gold. Thus, the Fed had hit the limit of the allowable money supply because it simply had no more gold available to it.

Admittedly, the Fed did some quite stupid things, such as a deliberate tightening of monetary policy, including raising interest rates. It was not until 1933 -- i.e., after FDR became President and named Eugene Black as Federal Reserve Chairman -- that the US went off the gold standard, so the Fed lowered interest rates and increased the money supply.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Then there's the nonsense from the Right that there's going to be a run on bonds....

You know, where America goes bankrupt overnight because everyone in the world suddenly cashes in their US Savings Bonds,....I guess for gold.

Because THAT'S gonna happen.